


The Action

by Choi Eimi (Siyah_Kedi)



Series: Agencyverse [4]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Choi%20Eimi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major sequel to "The Agency."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baekhyun Is Back

**Chapter One – Baekhyun Is Back**

 

Stretched out on a sunny beach with a drink that had a little umbrella in it didn’t feel like work.  It certainly wasn’t as labour-intensive as what he’d been doing a year ago, but then again, he could have been doing ten times the work he had been and it wouldn’t have been as labour-intensive only because Luhan was there with him.

As he’d predicted when they started, Luhan was just as argumentative and snarky in person as he was when Lay thought he was a computer. 

Luhan finished his drink with an impolite slurp, then set it off to one side.  “We should get going soon,” he said.  Lay sighed, but the sun was starting to sink below the horizon and it would be getting chilly to just be lying around in swimming trunks.  He finished his drink with more decorum than Luhan, gathered the glasses, and brought them back to the cabana.

“I can’t believe he’s got us working this on our vacation,” he griped.

“It’s a prime opportunity.  One of the foreign agents was supposed to have left a message for us and there’s no other way to retrieve it.  It’ll be easy,” Luhan said.  “In and out.”

“I hate it when you say that,” Lay muttered.  “It always turns out to be a lie.”

 

*

 

Racing hand in hand down the corridor, Lay and Luhan made their escape from the towering hotel.  Bombs on the upper level would soon send the entire structure crashing to the ground, whether they were free of it or not. 

“It’ll be  _easy,_  you said!” Lay shouted.  A shockwave rocked the building to the foundation and made them stumble.  “In and out, you said!”

“Yeah, yeah, I was wrong!” Luhan yelled back, straining to be heard over the sound of the explosions.  “At least we got it!”

Lay was clutching the manila envelope containing the alleged letter from another agency in his free hand.  Luhan tripped across an overturned chair that had been jostled into the hall by the quaking.  Lay hauled him up and they kept going.

Once they’d reached safety, Luhan turned to survey the damage wrought in the burning building.  The top half was almost entirely missing, having collapsed into its own lower floors.  Flames burst out of a window and reached up, tongues of fire licking the upper stories.

Lay used the light of the fire to read the envelope.  It was mostly unmarked on the outside; a simple type-written note declared it was addressed to “The Agency, c/o South Korea.”

He tore it open and shook out a second, smaller envelope.  This one was clear, and Lay handed the open envelope to Luhan to free up his hands.  He opened the second envelope, and discovered a single polaroid picture.  Frowning, Lay held it up to use the light to see it. Then he gasped.

“What is it?”  Luhan crowded close to get a better look at it, and then snatched it out of Lay’s hands so he could stare.  “Is this… what I think it is?”

The picture was of the two of them, lounging on the beach with their multi-coloured drinks.  It appeared to have been taken earlier that day. 

On the back, in silver ink, was scrawled the words, “ _I still see you.  –One”_

Lay ripped the picture out of Luhan’s hands, looking at it again.  It was very clearly them, and very clearly recent.  He looked around, suddenly suspicious of the crowd being drawn by the explosions.  It could have been any one of them.  “He could be here,” Lay said, completely oblivious to Luhan taking the picture back from him once more.  “This is our chance,” he added.

Luhan choked.  “Excuse me?”

“We have to find him, while he’s here,” Lay said, feeling a mounting sense of urgency.  “If we let him get away now, we’ll never find him.”

Luhan was staring at him, open-mouthed, shaking his head vaguely.  “That is the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” he said. 

Lay stared at Luhan.  Luhan stared back.  “You’re crazy!  We’re just going to let him walk away from us?  What if he goes back to Canada?  We’ll never find him.  You’ve  _seen_  the reports coming out of Quebec, you  _know_  that’s where they went, at least at first.”  He was getting louder with every word, his arms flailing as he tried to convey how important this was. 

“Crazy,” Luhan said, incredulous.  “I’m crazy?   _I’m_  crazy?  We are  _not_  shooting off into the dark to find someone who may or may not even be here!   _Someone_  set the bombs!  And planted the fake envelope!  If he’s insane enough to set  _bombs_  in a  _hotel_  there is no telling what he’ll do!”

Lay stomped his foot down, building into a real fury.  “This could be our only chance!” He clutched at his hair, and released a wordless sound of rage.  “Why do you always think I can’t do my job?  This is what I  _trained for!_ ”

Luhan was getting angry now, too.  “It has nothing to do with you not knowing how to do your job,” he said.  “It’s about your incessant need to always play the  _hero!_ ”

“That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“It’s what you  _always_  do!  Rescue the damsel in distress, fight the dragon, topple the crime syndicate!”

“One of those things doesn’t belong,” Lay quipped, trying to break the tension.  He didn’t like where this was going all of a sudden.  It was Luhan’s turn to burst out with a frustrated yell.

“You’re not listening to me!” he shouted.  “You never listen to me!”

“Oh, you’re just  _lying_  now,” Lay shouted back, his temper getting the better of him.  “You are the  _one person_  I trust above all others on the  _entire planet!_   How does that constitute not listening to you?”

“I am not going to stand here and argue with you!  We are  _not_  going after Baekhyun and that is  _final!_ ” Luhan whirled on the balls of his feet and stalked away.  A group of gawking tourists scattered before him like Moses parting the waters. 

“You’re not my mother!” Lay shouted after him.  Luhan ignored him utterly.  Lay grunted and kicked over a nearby trashcan.  Immediately, he felt guilty for it and righted it before throwing himself onto the ground.  “Fuck.   _Fuck._   Why do we always fight like this?”

He loved Luhan, and trusted him totally.  The constant insinuations that Lay was losing his touch, that he couldn’t do his job were beginning to grate, however.  They’d been field partners for months now, almost half a year after their six months of probation was up after the Rocky debacle.  And before that, they’d been agent-and-contact for nearly five years, two of which had been spent with Lay out in the field on his own, with only Luhan’s limited camera-vision as backup.  He was  _more_  than capable of doing his job, with Luhan or without him!

“Are you okay?”

Lay looked up and saw a tall, blond foreign man smiling down at him.  He stood up, and was surprised to find himself still looking up to see his face.  He spoke accented English, and Lay found himself responding in the same language.

“Yes, thank you.  I am well, and yourself?”  He could hear how stiff and formal he sounded, but he’d only had limited contact with English-speakers and couldn’t figure out the pronunciation, which seemed to have been decided by a coin toss. 

“Sorry for interrupting,” the tall foreigner said, and smiled.  “I couldn’t help but notice you seemed upset, and I also saw your boyfriend leave you.” 

“ _The rat bastard,_ ” Lay muttered in Chinese, and saw the foreign man draw back in surprise. 

In the same language, he said, “You speak Mandarin?  Oh, you’re interesting.  Is Zhang Yixing your real name, then?”

Lay took an involuntary step backwards. 

“Oh, bad manners,” a terrifyingly familiar voice said, from behind him.  Lay turned just enough to see Baekhyun approaching from the side.  A chilling smile curved his lips, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.  Lay whirled, but before he could flee, Baekhyun caught him with ease and held him while he struggled.

“Yes, very bad manners,” the foreign man said with another smile.  “Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Kris.”

_Oh, shit._

A sharp, tiny pain in his arm told Lay that they’d stuck him with something.  It was the last coherent thought he had before blacking out.

 

Waking up was a luxurious process.  Lay identified the softness of a feather-lined mattress beneath him, covered with silken sheets.  Calypso music played softly from an unidentifiable source. 

He breathed deeply, and smelled saltwater.  The cry of gulls echoed in through an open window, brought in on a tangy, warm breeze.  It was then that he realised the bed was rocking gently back and forth, and tried to sit up.  He reached two conclusions immediately, followed quickly by a third.

First, he was on a boat.

Second, he was tied to a bed.

Third: He’d been taken by Kris and Baekhyun and Luhan had no way of tracking him.


	2. Evil Is As Evil Does

**Chapter Two: Evil Is As Evil Does**

 

“I am not happy,” Kris muttered.  Baekhyun finished measuring out the proportions of drug-to-water ratios and turned to face him with a curious look on his face. 

“What’s wrong now?”

Kris scowled.  “When you said you wanted him, and asked if you could have him, I wasn’t expecting you to bring him back  _here._ ”

Baekhyun waved him off.  “Where else would I have brought him?  His…  _partner_  –” he imbued the word with as much derision as he could manage in two syllables.  “– Is adept at hacking and other computer-related technology.  If we’d stayed on the island, he would have found us before it was too late.”

The irritated frown deepened, forming lines on Kris’s beautiful face.  Baekhyun crawled into his lap and kissed him.  “Don’t be so moody,” he said, half-teasingly.  “He’ll be out of our hair soon.  I promise.”

Kris made as if to push him away, and then changed his mind and drew Baekhyun in closer.  “I just really don’t like him,” he muttered.  “I don’t want him in our space.” 

Pressing a light kiss to Kris’s jaw, Baekhyun wriggled away, checking on the water.  It was bubbling slightly as the chemicals mixed, but even that minor reaction was subsiding.  The liquid gave off a slightly floral scent, which was bizarre, but only detectible if one was looking for it.  “Just think of how great it’ll be soon,” Baekhyun said, still trying to draw Kris out of the funk he’d settled into.

“Yeah, but I want him out  _now._ ”  Kris brightened.  “Can we throw him overboard?”

“ _No,_ ” Baekhyun cried.  “It’ll ruin the other half of my plan!”  He brandished the hypodermic needle in Kris’s direction before setting it gently back down into the velvet-lined box they were using to transport Chen’s last ‘gifts.’ 

Raising one eyebrow, Kris settled back in his chair and watched Baekhyun work.  “You’re a scary person,” he said finally, and Baekhyun broke off the song he’d been humming to shoot his partner and sometimes-lover a questioning glance. 

“ _I’m_  scary?”

Kris rose and tucked himself against Baekhyun’s smaller body.  Baekhyun leaned against him happily.  “It’s the perfect revenge,” he murmured.  “Repayment to Yixing for betraying me, and a nice pre-emptive strike against the Luhan who stole him from me.”

“Technically,” Kris whispered, nuzzling his ear, “You betrayed him as well.” 

Confused, Baekhyun waved him off.  “I’m going to go give this to him now,” he said in lieu of commenting.  “It’s still alright if I fuck him, right?”

He turned a hopeful look on Kris, who sighed.  “Yes,” he said, with a long-suffering look.  “I told you that you could.  I just wasn’t expecting you to be doing it on our boat.”

Baekhyun beamed, overwhelmed with good feelings about his upcoming revenge on Yixing – also known as Agent Lay.  He was still having trouble reconciling the two aspects, even after so long.  He’d almost been ready to give up entirely, and actually hadn’t thought of Yixing in months – until he saw them together on the beach. 

The sight of Yixing had inflamed all of his old desires – both carnal and homicidal.  It was only increased when he saw him acting so lovey-dovey with the other Agency prick, Luhan.  He’d been unable to think of anything else for a week, devising and discarding plans to fuck Yixing once and for all – figuratively and literally – as well as strike out at the doe-eyed man who was partnering him now.  A phone call to Chen had made everything clear.

He’d enlisted Kris’s help, despite constant complaints from his best friend and partner.  Kris had obtained the drugs he was using – the special aphrodisiac, the knock-out he’d used to get Yixing onto the boat, and something Chen had only been experimenting with but which proved highly entertaining during tests.  Kris had also arranged to trick the Agency into sending the two agents on a special mission, and then helped Baekhyun bait the trap. 

Truth be told, Baekhyun realised, Kris had done the majority of the work.  And he’d made it abundantly clear that he hated Yixing and wanted nothing to do with the man.  In a small, back-corner of his mind, Baekhyun wondered why he went through the effort, and then forgot it entirely a moment later.  The water had taken on a slightly lavender-purplish hue, which Chen had informed him meant it was at its most potent.  He took the glass in to the room where Yixing was being held, and paused for a moment in the doorway to appreciate the light of the dawning sun playing over the flat planes of Yixing’s bare chest as it smoothly rose and fell with his deep breathing. 

As Baekhyun watched, it hitched slightly as he roused.  He remained silent in the doorway as Yixing blinked open his eyes and took stock of his situation.  Displaying the same rational calm that Baekhyun had inadvertently admired in Yixing during their first date, Yixing tugged experimentally on the bonds that held him to the bed and looked around the room, presumably for exits and weapons.  When he saw Baekhyun standing there, he visibly jumped and then forced his expression into a flat mask.

“Baekhyun,” he said stiffly. 

“Yixing,” Baekhyun returned, more warmly.  In the pit of his stomach, he was really just … _happy._   He was happy that Yixing was with him again.  Although he’d had a year to get used to  _feeling_  things it still sometimes took him off-guard.  Sometimes he felt love for Kris for all the things the other man had done for him over the years.  That usually expressed itself in ways that Kris had no complaints about, like surprises in the bedroom or nicely cooked dinners.  Sometimes he felt pity for the people he fucked over or killed, and that was harder to deal with.  He’d gone through his entire life not caring about anyone else, and suddenly it  _mattered_  to him that he stay to watch the light leave their eyes as their hearts stopped.   

When he didn’t say anything else, he saw – and more importantly, recognised – apprehension in Yixing’s features.

“Why am I here?”

Baekhyun stepped further into the room.  Yixing discovered that there was some leeway in the ropes tying him as he scooted further up the bed and away from Baekhyun.  It hurt that Yixing should react like a skittish animal, but then Baekhyun reminded himself that he didn’t have anything decent planned for the other man, and he was right to be skittish.   _Also,_  his brain supplied,  _the last time you saw him you were hauling him into the back of Rocky’s van to be killed._   He was highly interested to know how Yixing had survived that incident, actually.  His thoughts jumped back to the time before that, when he remembered shooting Yixing in the chest with every intention of killing him.

In hindsight, that had been his mistake.  Pulling the trigger himself had had an adverse effect on him, because that was when the  _feelings_  started.  He’d grieved for Yixing’s death, and fallen into a deep depression over being the cause of it.  Finding out Yixing was still alive had been more of a shock than he was able to process immediately. 

But that was all in the past, he decided.  The future began now, starting with the concoction he held in his hand.  “I brought you some water, if you’re thirsty,” he said.  Yixing’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.  Baekhyun brought the glass to his lips and just barely touched the liquid.  It tasted slightly sweet, but was perhaps not noticeable unless someone knew the water had been doctored.  “See, it’s fine,” he said after his false sip.  “Promise not to hurt me now, or I’ll have to tie your legs, do you understand?”

Yixing stared darkly at him for a moment before nodding his assent.  Fear and tension rolled off him in waves, though, as Baekhyun approached him, and Baekhyun could see his hands curl into fists where they were restrained by the ropes.  He took the water meekly, however, drinking the whole glass down with Baekhyun’s help. 

“Why am I here,” he asked again.  “Why are you being –” his hand fluttered as he searched for a word.  “–All of a sudden?” he finished lamely, leaving a blank space in his sentence. 

“I’m actually not being,” Baekhyun said and waved his hand as Yixing had done.  “Whatever you’re thinking.  I actually have a plan that you’re probably not going to like.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”  Baekhyun gave a bright smile that Kris had told him made him look like a demented angel, and Yixing’s eyes narrowed further before flickering to the empty glass.  His face paled. 

“You,” he said, and struggled futilely against the restraints.  Baekhyun couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up.  He was really, really just so  _happy_  to have Yixing back!

“Anon,” Baekhyun sang out, and retreated to the other room where Kris was reading a newspaper in English.  He was still laughing, and it garnered him an odd look from Kris for a moment.  Sometimes it seemed like Kris was having just as much trouble adjusting to  _New Baekhyun_  as Baekhyun himself was. 

“You look pleased with yourself,” Kris said, folding the paper.  He didn’t sound happy.  Baekhyun didn’t know whether to curse Yixing or bless him for bringing these feelings back to him – before the events of a year ago, he never would have noticed – or cared, if he had – that Kris was unhappy.

“I am!” Baekhyun smiled again.  “It’s bringing a lot of memories back,” he said.  “Having Yixing here.”

Kris grunted noncommittally. 

“How long do you think it should take to kick in?”

Kris paused in the act of reaching for the newspaper again.  “Chen said about fifteen to twenty minutes for full effect,” he said.  Baekhyun settled onto the lounge and fixed his gaze on the clock.

About ten minutes later, he began to notice something wasn’t right.  His skin tingled, and he wanted to go – do  _something._ Touch Kris.  Touch Yixing.  Touch  _himself._   He wanted to tear his clothes off, because he was feeling too sensitive, and hot, and confused.  Kris noticed his fidgeting, of course. 

“What’s wrong with you?”

Suddenly, Baekhyun felt ashamed.  His face flooded with colour.  Kris rose out of his seat and came around the table, taking Baekhyun’s chin in his hand. 

“Your eyes look strange,” Kris said.  “And – are you  _blushing?_ ”

“I – I –”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t mean to!  I didn’t even put it in my mouth, I just touched my lips to it.”

Kris’s severe look became darker and darker until Baekhyun was actually afraid he was going to yell, or even hit him.   Finally it broke and Kris covered his mouth to muffle the snickers.  “You drugged  _yourself?_ ”

Baekhyun’s face felt hot.  “Yixing got most of it,” he said.  But because the drug had to be dissolved in water prior to ingestion, there was no other way to convince him to drink it.  It wasn’t like the other two, which could be injected with good effect. 

“How do you feel?”

“Sensitive,” Baekhyun said, plucking at his shirt again.  The rough scratch of the cotton against his skin was driving him to distraction. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t fuck him,” Kris murmured, his voice husky.  “Maybe you should just leave him in there to rot and fuck me instead.”

Baekhyun nearly jumped him right then and there.   With a supreme effort of will, he restrained himself.  “Mm, no, I can’t,” he said.  “Since they’re together, I think it’ll be so much more satisfying to make him know he cheated on his lover,” Baekhyun decided, mourning the future loss of Kris’s body.

“You are sadistic,” Kris said approvingly.  “At least let him stew in it a little longer,” he suggested hopefully.

   “I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now,” Baekhyun said, a little sorry now that he’d gone to such extremes.  It had been easy to contemplate when he was planning and preparing it.  Now that he knew what such a small amount was doing to him, he almost regretted what it must be doing to Yixing. 

After all, he  _was_  still in love with the man.


	3. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

**Chapter Three – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do**

 

Kicking himself for allowing Baekhyun to trick him so easily, Lay pulled on the ropes restraining him to the bed again, trying to loosen them enough to free himself.  When all he succeeded in doing was tightening them around both his wrists and the bedpost, he gave up and instead looked out the window, mulling over recent events.  Luhan was probably frantic, though a part of Lay was savagely pleased.  He would escape from this on his own, and maybe –  _finally –_  Luhan would agree that Lay was a capable agent, regardless of the circumstances. 

He wondered what kind of homecoming he could look forward to.  Would Luhan welcome him warmly, or leap right into an unfounded lecture?  Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he realised Luhan had no grounds for lecturing this time.   _Luhan_  had been the one to leave him on the street.  And no one – except perhaps Baekhyun – had known what Kris looked like. 

He preferred to think of Luhan as greeting him happily, anyway.  He closed his eyes and could almost picture it.  He’d go back to the Agency, and Luhan would be there.  Luhan would throw his arms around Lay and squeeze him in a way Lay loved, but would never admit to enjoying, and then kiss him there in front of everyone.  The fantasy flashed over to Lay’s apartment.  He still hadn’t seen Luhan’s, and wasn’t entirely sure he had one; vaguely, he was aware that Luhan basically lived at the Agency, in one of the dorm rooms he’d seen during the invasion. 

Lay’s flat, then, and Luhan would kick down the door and begin kissing Lay once more.  During a drunken dare, Lay had revealed that he had a hidden fondness for being pressed up against things, and when he suddenly remembered that Luhan  _knew_  that, he wondered if his former contact would ever indulge him in it.  In his mind, Luhan was holding him pinned against the wall and working his way into Lay’s jeans when an external noise intruded.  The fantasy snapped off.  Lay’s eyes flew open, and for a moment he was afraid he’d been caught in the act of a daydreaming, totally unaware, but the room was empty.  He identified the noise as a canvas sail flapping in the wind. 

 _Stupid,_  he berated himself.   _Luhan’s not here.  This is the worst place to get involved in a fantasy like that._   It was even worse because his hands were tied.  He shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable with his wrists held above his head.  The sheets were an interesting sensation against his skin, and he wriggled again trying to recapture it.  Then he recalled his dignity again and glanced quickly at the door.  Still no sign of Baekhyun.

 _As if Luhan would react like that anyway,_  Lay thought, and sighed deeply.  The more realistic scenario is that Luhan would indeed kiss him – but it would be brief, and then he would immediately begin haranguing Lay about getting himself taken prisoner.   _Even though it’s not fair!  I didn’t do anything wrong this time!_    _It was all Baekhyun…_

His breath caught as he thought of Baekhyun again.  The months since he’d last seen the other man had been kind.  His smile was more natural and at ease, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy Lay’s position.  Even during their disastrous dating period, Lay had always felt something was being held back in Baekhyun and he didn’t get that feeling from him anymore.  It was as if Baekhyun was now one hundred percent himself.  He’d somehow become even more beautiful, Lay couldn’t help but notice.  Real happiness was attractive on anyone, no matter what the cause.  Lay could even appreciate the way he said  _Yixing_  still, and how his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners when he smiled. 

Recognising Baekhyun’s new openness, he couldn’t help but wonder what the man would look like now if they had sex.  He had a ten-second flashback to the one and only chance they had on the overstuffed couch in his apartment, when he’d discovered the two silver hoops that pierced Baekhyun’s nipples.  The look on his face when Lay gently tugged one of them had been blissful, but even then he’d been holding something back.  Lay yearned to know how he might react  _now._   As though the thought conjured the images, he was daydreaming again, only this time he was flipping the nipple ring with his  _tongue._   Just the thought sent tingles through his body, and although it was a slowly dawning realisation, once he noticed, the feeling of arousal swamped him.  His jeans were too loose to create friction, and the feel of the balmy breeze drifting in through the window caressed his bared skin like a lover.  Everything took on a slightly hazy look as he found himself unable to even think of anything besides sex.  He wanted it.  He’d roll over and grind against the bed if it wouldn’t have killed his arms. 

Before he’d made a conscious decision to do so, he heard himself shouting.  “Baekhyunnie!”  It struck him as odd, but then he remembered that Luhan wouldn’t come even if he’d been there.  Luhan was mad at him.  Baekhyun would help. 

What the sight of him there – tied to the bed and panting, a light sheen of sweat covering his chest – did to Baekhyun, he would never know for sure.  But the other man came to the doorway, a gleaming light in his eyes, and paused, staring at him with open-mouthed wonder. 

“You’ve been working out,” Baekhyun said, a little off-handedly. 

“No,” Lay said automatically, but then corrected himself.  “Yes,” he decided.  “Baekhyun, what did you give me?”

The bright, childlike smile lit up Baekhyun’s whole face.  “Water, with something Chen never named,” he said, and crossed the room to sit on the edge of the bed.  His eyes were glassy and unfocused as he took in every inch of Lay’s prone body. 

“What – what  _is_  it?” He ached with Baekhyun so close and still not touching him.  He was beginning to get hard in his pants just from looking at the other man.  Baekhyun leaned over and trailed one finger down his chest and stomach.  It left a tingling burn in its wake. 

“Just something to make you a little more – amenable,” Baekhyun said.  “Is it working?”

Lay let out a ragged gasp.  “I think I’m going to die if you don’t touch me again,” he said with total honesty.  Baekhyun pressed the palm of his hand flat against Lay’s ribs.  Even that minimal and generally unsexy contact was enflaming.  Lay shuddered, though not with revulsion.  “At least untie me,” he pleaded.

“Mm, no,” Baekhyun said.  “It’s not because I’m afraid you’ll run away; you’re on a boat in the middle of the pacific, and there’s nowhere to run  _to._   But I rather like you like this.”  His hand came down this time on the slight bulge in Lay’s pants, and although it was just resting on the zipper, the mild pressure was amazing.  Lay’s hips bucked up against the touch without his consent, and Baekhyun briefly moved away before taking pity on him – or the helpless whine that escaped from him – and pressing down again, rubbing slightly.  Lay grounded himself by wrapping his hands around the rope that held him and gripping it tightly, almost pulling on it. 

“I want,” Baekhyun breathed.  “I want, oh I want to fuck you.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes please,” Lay said.  In the back of his mind, he truly wondered if it was okay.  But he also knew that his body was on fire, and that if he didn’t come soon he was going to spontaneously combust.  Baekhyun paused and looked at him for a moment, an oddly serious expression on his face.  It passed almost before Lay could get a handle on what, exactly, he was seeing, and then Baekhyun practically tore his shirt off, discarding it as soon as it was free.  He loosened the top button on his jeans and crawled up the bed, looming over Lay in a way that was somewhat familiar from their time together seriously. 

He fitted himself against Lay, who noticed with a quick stab of pleasure that they fit together as if they’d been made that way.  Then surprising Lay enormously, he kissed him.  At the same time he was distracting Lay with the tonsil-seeking kiss, his hips began to grind against Lay’s, and coherent thoughts fled. 

The next time he was aware of anything, Baekhyun was pulling away from the kiss.  They’d somehow both lost their remaining clothes, and Lay shuffled himself up onto his elbows awkwardly so he could look at Baekhyun’s nude glory.  He’d pulled away to open the drawer of a bedside table Lay hadn’t even realised was there, and withdrew a tube of lubrication, and – to Lay’s immense relief – a condom.  So it was to be sex, but not rape.  There was a key difference there in his mind, for all that he was still tied to the bed.  Baekhyun fisted himself quickly before unwrapping the condom, looking at Lay with a dark look in his eyes the whole while.  It took Lay’s breath away. 

He coated his fingers liberally, before realigning himself along Lay’s body.  This time they were both naked and Lay’s nerve-endings lit up like a fireworks display at the sensation.  Against his back, the sheets were warm and soft, adding a new dimension to the pleasure as Baekhyun pressed him down with his weight. 

“Spread your legs,” Baekhyun whispered, his voice hoarse.  Lay complied willingly, ignoring the small voice in the back of his mind that was continually screaming denials at him.   _Luhan_ , it said.   _Remember Luhan!_

And all he could think was,  _Luhan never approved of my relationship with Baekhyun, but he was the one who left me on that island when they took me._   Then Baekhyun was pushing two fingers into his body and he arched up off the bed to press him in deeper as rational thought evaporated.  Baekhyun didn’t waste time with preparation, moving with a quick efficiency that nonetheless left Lay tingling.  Some of it was undoubtedly the mysterious drug he’d been given, but he’d known from the first that Baekhyun was someone special.

Finding out they were on opposite sides had delineated the break in his mind, but his heart and his body still remembered what Baekhyun meant, once. 

“Now,” he gasped.  “Please?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Baekhyun said, sounding just as breathless as Lay.  He positioned himself carefully, shoving Lay’s legs out of his way, and began to push in.  The pleasure was overwhelming.  Lay’s mind whited out for a moment, and Baekhyun paused with just the tip inside, his arms trembling as he struggled to keep his weight up.  When Lay looked at him, the expression on his face was blissful. 

“Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lay waited.  “Are you going to move?”

“Yeah.”

Giving his hips an experimental wiggle, Lay drew a shuddering gasp out of Baekhyun before he pushed in further.  They found a rhythm quickly and the pleasure mounted.  Lay was reaching the point he would ordinarily have come when he opened his eyes.  As he jerked back and gasped, Baekhyun chuckled.

“Are you coming?” Baekhyun’s eyes opened and focused on him, only to see him looking  _past_  Baekhyun.  Without interrupting his motion, Baekhyun looked over his shoulder and smiled to see Kris leaning against the doorway, watching.  “Hi,” he said, except his breath hitched in the middle of the word and cracked it. 

“Having fun?”

“Mmm,” Baekhyun said, still grinning.  Lay was torn between an icy drop of fear in his stomach and the rising heat of orgasm.  He couldn’t believe Baekhyun was being so calm about this new situation, and was a little surprised at the delicious thrill he found because Kris had been  _watching_   _them._

“It was so quiet in here, I thought perhaps one of you had killed the other,” Kris continued, moving further into the room.  Lay’s body tensed, and Baekhyun moaned in response.  He then giggled, reminding Lay of a small child with the tiny portion of his brain that was still functioning.

“Should I get louder?”

Kris was standing directly over them.  Baekhyun still hadn’t stopped his thrusts – in fact, they seemed to have gained power, as if Baekhyun drew strength from Kris’s presence.  Lay hovered in between absolute pleasure and orgasm, held back from crossing the threshold by the idea that  _Kris was in the room._   Then with a stab of fear, he wondered if the drug was keeping him from climaxing – if that was the case, if this kept up, his mind was going to break from the uninterrupted pleasure simply building and building with no end. 

“No, but I think I might be able to help,” Kris said, and reached down between them to curl his fingers around Lay’s throat. 

This was the end, then, he realised.  Kris was going to personally kill him while Baekhyun fucked him into insanity.

They tightened enough around his windpipe that he couldn’t get air in or out.  Instead of making him more afraid and killing the buzz, the lack of oxygen seemed to be doing –  _other things_  to him.  Stars burst behind his eyes, his vision dotted with black.  Beyond the arm and the hand he couldn’t see, Lay was aware of Kris’s cold expression turning into a smirk as helpless whimpers began building in his chest, screaming to be let out.

“Oh,” Baekhyun said.  “Oh, I like his voice like this.  Thank you!”

Just when the darkness was about to overtake him completely, Kris let go.  Lay sucked in a deep breath and exhaled on a wordless shout as Kris picked up his leg, changing the angle of Baekhyun’s body pushing into his.  It caused all sorts of new frictions inside as Baekhyun’s dick rubbed back and forth across his prostate.   _Speaking of whiting out,_  Lay thought, when his brain came back online.  He was only vaguely aware of having climaxed, the oversensitivity of his body as Baekhyun continued thrusting his biggest clue.  He’d never in his  _life_  had an orgasm like that one.

Baekhyun whined low in his throat.  “No fair,” he complained. 

Lay fell limply against the bed, letting Baekhyun continue while Kris climbed up onto the mattress beside them and made a show of wiggling his fingers before moving his hand down out of Lay’s line of sight.  Whatever he did to Baekhyun caused the other man to stiffen and moan, then bite his lip and drop his head.  Lay could see Kris’s hand moving and realised that he was fingering Baekhyun while the smaller man was still fucking Lay and absurdly, the only thing that went through Lay’s mind was  _But he told me nothing goes near his ass._

Apparently Kris was the exception to this, because it only took a minute more before Baekhyun threw his head back, his mouth open and eyes closed as he thrust once more, powerfully sheathing himself to the hilt, as he climaxed into Lay’s body.  Kris vanished between one blink and the next, and Lay was shaking Baekhyun as best as he could, suddenly not sure if he’d somehow imagined Kris being there.

“Untie me,” he begged.  “Baekhyun, please.  I’m not going to run away.”

Slowly, Baekhyun stirred, still panting and flushed.  He withdrew from Lay’s body and nodded once, disposing of the condom before fumbling with the knots around Lay’s wrists clumsily.  Finally, he went back into the drawer, retrieved what looked like a hunting knife, and sawed through the rope.  Lay’s shoulders screamed at him when he finally was able to lower his arms, and he could see where he would have deep purple and black bruises for days around his wrists where the ropes had dug into the skin. 

To his immense surprise, Baekhyun crawled back into the bed, tugged Lay up against him, and between one breath and the next, fell asleep.  Lay listened to his heartbeat return to a normal, slower pace and let the sound soothe and lull him.

 

The next time he opened his eyes, it was dark.  Baekhyun was still beside him, their limbs tangled together, his breath hot against Lay’s ear.  He shivered with delight, and realised he could still feel the drug working through his veins.  Clearly however long it had been hadn’t been long enough.  Feeling mischievous and horny, he carefully extracted himself from Baekhyun’s loose grip and pushed the blanket off him. 

That made him realise there  _was_  a blanket, and he looked around with surprise.  There was no sign of Kris, but the blanket had come from somewhere, and a tray with little sandwiches cut into neat triangles, empty glasses and a pitcher of water, as well as some other munchables.  The sight of the pitcher made him realise how thirsty he was, and he filled one glass almost to the brim before drinking it down and hoping that it wasn’t drugged again. 

It was simply water, cool and clear and sweet tasting.  He drank another glass, and then went in search of a bathroom.  He found one off the room, and another door that lead to a hallway.  Since he had no desire to meet Kris again, he simply made use of the facilities and crawled back into bed with Baekhyun.  The impish feeling returned as he saw Baekhyun there, innocent in sleep with his mouth open slightly as he breathed deeply and even. 

There wasn’t even the slightest hint that he was a crazed murderer who trafficked in drugs.  No villainous tattoos, or taint of evil around his body.  He was simply beautiful. 

Lay wormed his way slowly down Baekhyun’s body and looked at him, taking in the milky-white skin and smooth muscles.  His mouth watered when his gaze fell on Baekhyun’s dick, soft now and resting.  The idea took him with the force of a hurricane.  He bent over and licked it once before taking it into his mouth.  Above him, Baekhyun stirred, groaning slightly.  Lay pulled back and watched for a moment, but Baekhyun simply sighed and settled deeper into the pillow. 

Returning to his task, Lay sucked him lightly until he felt a response as the blood began to swell in him.  Baekhyun’s breath hitched and became faster, though he didn’t seem to be waking up.  Thrilled with the discovery, he sucked harder, bringing his hand into play by stroking the soft skin of Baekhyun’s inner thighs.   He was rewarded once more with another soft sigh as Baekhyun’s legs slid apart to accommodate him, and an incoherent mutter.  Baekhyun was fully hard now, and Lay licked him briefly before returning to sucking on the tip, flicking his tongue out against the slit. 

Baekhyun moaned out loud, and the sound of his own voice seemed to wake him up.  “Wha- what..?   _Oh!_ ” 

Lay took him fully into his mouth as he looked up the length of Baekhyun’s body in time to see him lift up on his elbows and look down, breathing hard and flushed. 

“Oh  _god,_ ” he whimpered, meeting Lay’s eyes.  His arms gave out and he collapsed back against the bed with a  _whumpf._   His hips rose up to push against Lay’s mouth, and Lay held him down, varying his patterns until Baekhyun was whimpering in a near-constant stream of nonsense syllables. 

His voice rose only slightly at the end as he cried out, coming down Lay’s throat.  Lay swallowed around him, and pulled off when he was done, leaving Baekhyun sweating and trembling on the mattress.  He rolled over and was about to get some more water when Baekhyun suddenly pounced on him from behind. 

“Always think of other people,” Baekhyun whispered.  “That’s what Kris taught me.  You are  _not_  going to wake me up like that and then just leave without getting a  _reward_ ,” he added, a little wickedly.  Lay, who hadn’t expected Baekhyun to  _reciprocate_  of all things, shivered with unfeigned delight.  He tucked Baekhyun’s comment of  _Kris taught me_  into the back of his mind to be examined later.  Baekhyun pushed him back down against the bed and curled his long, beautiful fingers around Lay’s dick.  It was almost unfair that  _every part_ of Baekhyun be so overwhelmingly stunning, from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers. 

Then the pleasure of having someone else touching him reached his brain and his body became limp until it built enough to tense him back up with oncoming orgasm.  It took a distressingly short time for Baekhyun to work him up and bring him over the edge.  Then he took Lay in his arms again and went back to sleep with that same quickness as he had the first time.  Lay nestled into his arms and breathed with him until sleep claimed him once more.

 

Waking a second time was a luxurious process, and he was unhappy to note that this time he was alone.  He stretched and realised he could, and then a crushing wave of depression hit him as he fully took in the events of the last day.  The sunlight coming in through the window lit up the evidence of the rumpled bedsheets, more damning than an accusation. 

 _I did that,_  he thought, and thought of Luhan for the first time since Baekhyun pushed into him yesterday morning.   _I did all of that._

The drug hadn’t compelled him in any way.  He’d been in full control of himself – overwhelmingly aroused, yes, but not out of his mind.  Guilt crashed down around him as he took in the full implications of what he’d done – with  _Baekhyun._   He hadn’t even  _thought_  of Luhan.  His partner in the field, his boyfriend.  He’d willingly done the worst thing he could think of: cheated. 

Numb, he staggered to the bathroom and examined his face in the mirror.  His throat bore a necklace of bruises from Kris’s fingers, individual prints embedded on his skin for all the world to see.  The bruising on his wrists looked even worse in the harsh light of the bathroom.  As he took stock of himself, he realised he was covered in bruises.  It looked as though someone had beaten him up.  His collarbone was ringed with them where Baekhyun had sucked on the skin until he whimpered.  The area around his nipple bore teeth marks.  His hips were almost solid purple where Baekhyun had gripped him and held him down.  Even his thighs were dotted with ugly blue-black smudges.  Nothing hurt – he couldn’t feel the physical with the emotional weight of his outright betrayal of Luhan hanging over his head.     

He splashed water on his face, and returned to the bedroom.  The pitcher had been refilled while he was in the restroom and the sandwiches replaced with fresh ones.  He ate mechanically and flopped back onto the bed, not even bothering to look for his clothes. 

It wasn’t until Baekhyun came in and threw them at him that he even became aware he was still naked. 

“I have something for you,” Baekhyun sing-songed.  He brandished a hypodermic needle filled with a glistening, pearl-white substance that sloshed around.  Lay stared dumbly at it while Baekhyun approached and set it down on the bedside table.

“Get dressed,” Baekhyun ordered.  Still as if in a dream, Lay moved to pull his clothes back on.  Dimly, he was aware of the slight ache of the bruises that covered him as he bent and stretched.  “Good,” Baekhyun said, and crawled over him, kissing him.  Lay failed to respond.

Baekhyun didn’t seem to notice.  “Now that we’ve concluded our business,” he said, briskly.  “I think it’s only fair to tell you that this second part isn’t for you.”

Lay glanced up at him, dully curious. 

“It’s for Luhan,” Baekhyun finished brightly. 

Lay burst into motion.  “You leave him alone!”

Baekhyun outmassed him by sheer muscle weight.  He wrestled him down against the bed with almost no effort.  Lay still put up a good fight, and Baekhyun couldn’t get his hands free long enough to do anything about whatever he had planned.

Unfortunately, Baekhyun had a backup plan that Lay hadn’t considered.  “Kris!  Come help me!”

Kris appeared so quickly in the room it was like he’d teleported into it.  He took over the job of helping Baekhyun hold Lay down and then no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t throw the both of them off.  Baekhyun held the needle up, smirking triumphantly, and then lodged it in Lay’s arm, depressing the plunger. 

It felt cold, going in.  He could trace its path from his arm into his blood, and from his bloodstream into his brain, where it blossomed into a cloud that obscured his senses, his thoughts, his very self.  Drifting in the white, Lay was lost.

 

\--

A couple of GIFs for you now.  In one, this is how I imagined Baekhyun looking up when Kris walked in (because tell the truth, does it or does it not look like he's having sex?)

 

And then ... this one needs no actual words.  Just look at him.

 

JUST LOOK AT THAT DISGUSTING DISPLAY.  (And how he dances up on Kris like that on the left. I saw that and I think I'm STILL dead.)


	4. Remember Me This Way

**Chapter Four – Remember Me This Way**

 

Floating.  He was completely adrift in a sea of blank white that glistened and sparkled.  Nothing mattered.  There was nothing.  Within the ocean of clouds, he couldn’t even remember his own name.  Then suddenly, voices drifted out of the void.

“Is this supposed to happen?”

“I think so.  His eyes are still open.  Yixing?  Can you hear me?”

He could hear them, but he didn’t know who or what Yixing was. 

“Did you kill him?”

“He’s still breathing,” the second voice replied.  “Yixing, answer me.  Can you hear me?  Are you okay?”

He thought,  _Yes._   And he heard someone else say it. 

“Phew.  Told you!”

“Wouldn’t have been a big loss.  Wouldn’t have killing him been enough revenge on Luhan for you?”

The second voice made an inarticulate noise.  “You know what happened the last time.”

“You also helped Rocky kidnap him.”

“I was angry, then.  Now, hush.  The sooner we do this, the easier it’ll be.”

The voices faded into silence.  Suddenly, a crystal dropped into the white void.  He found himself enchanted by it.  Colours coruscated off the faceted edges as it spun in place, and then it suddenly began to swing gently to and fro.

“Watch the pretty crystal, Yixing,” the second, pleasanter voice said.  He had no trouble focusing on it.  He wanted to watch it anyway.  “Watch it go back and forth and feel yourself getting sleepy.  You’re sleepy, aren’t you?”

 _Yes…_  he thought again, because he was.  He suddenly wanted to take a nap.  Anything the voice told him to do was what he wanted. 

“Good.  Now tell me your name.”

 _Zhang Yixing, also known as Lay,_  he thought-replied, without realising what he was even saying. 

The first voice grunted.  “I guess it  _is_  his real name.”

“Hush!”  The second voice grew louder for a moment, and then returned to the gentle monotone he was enjoying.  “Okay, Yixing, do you remember Luhan?”

A face appeared in the mist.  Large, soft brown eyes, a slender yet masculine body.  Small cheeks, fluffy golden hair.   _Yes._

“ _Good_ ,” the voice said.  “I want you to take all of your memories of Luhan and gather them up.  Can you do that?”

_Yes._

He felt them coming.  He remembered getting his first contact button when he was initiated into the Agency, and being startled when a voice chirped, ’Hi, I’m Luhan!  I’ll be your contact from now on!’  Years and years of fights with Luhan.  Working with the voice issuing from the button.  Getting in and out of missions with Luhan’s help, and then more recently, finding out Luhan wasn’t a computer.  Finding out that Luhan had been in love with him from the beginning, almost.  Working with Luhan.  Talking with Luhan.  Loving him more and more each day.  Fighting again, always fighting.  Bitter feelings because Luhan had lied to him for so long, trying to reconcile the fact that his longtime partner wasn’t what he’d said he was. 

The memories piled up in the cloud before him, like a stack of pictures. 

“Do you have them all?” The pleasant voice asked. 

_Yes._

“Good job!  Okay, one last thing.  I want you to put them into a box and bury it.  Put all the memories of Luhan away and hide the box somewhere it will never be found.  Can you do that?”

_Yes._

A box was already forming around the stack.  It was solid, tight.  Once it was complete, a hole appeared in the void.  It looked like dirt beneath the white, and the hole gradually became bigger, deeper.  Digging and digging, it went on for a long time.  Finally, it was deep enough that the box would never be found.  He put the box in the hole, and filled it in.  Filling it was faster than digging it out had been.  Finally, he smoothed the dirt down over the hole, and the white clouds rushed back in to obscure it.  Even if he’d been standing on top of it, he never would have found it again.

“Have you buried it?  Are they gone?”

_Yes.  All gone._

Laughter.  “Good, very good.” 

Pleasure suffused him.  He’d done a good thing.  Not like – hadn’t someone always been telling him he was wrong…? He couldn’t remember. 

“You did a good job, Yixing.  Now I want you to forget what just happened.  Don’t think about it.  Don’t remember it.  You’re going to go to sleep now, and when you wake up, this will be wiped away, do you understand?”

_Yes._

“Good.  Now I know you’re tired.  Go ahead and sleep.  Goodnight.”

_Goodnight…_

The white became black, and he knew no more.

 

*

 

Birds were chirping.  His head ached, and it felt like every bird in the whole damn world was sitting on him, chirping right in his ear.  Lay groaned, and opened his eyes.  An ant the size of a small dog was crawling over a ragged canyon right in front of him, and he jerked away from it with a startled yelp.  Then the proportions reinstated themselves, and he realised he’d been lying on the pavement.  The motion hurt – his entire body hurt. 

His head felt like it had been opened up and scraped clean.  He looked at his hands, and was startled to see the ligature marks around his wrists, and then remembered.   _Baekhyun._   His face flamed.  When he took a larger look around, he realised he was close to the Agency’s front.  Far enough that they wouldn’t have seen him, but close enough for him to recognise his surroundings, and get to it.  He didn’t know how he’d gotten there, but suspected that whatever Baekhyun gave him at the end – he’d said it was for someone … someone else, Lay realised, but he couldn’t remember what he meant – had knocked him out long enough for them to bring him back. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been missing, or what the reaction was going to be when he went back inside, but he had to go give his debrief to Ace, and find out what had happened.  And possibly, he realised, see the medical wing.  He hadn’t realised one body could be so sore, stiff, or aching.  He staggered to his feet, leaning on the building for support, and made his slow, creeping way to the door.  It flew open before he reached it, and Sehun burst out. 

 “ _Agent Lay!_ ” he shrieked, reaching deafening volume with just two words.  Lay winced.

“Ow, Sehun, jeez…”

“Come inside  _right now!_ Where have you been?  What the hell happened?  How did you get back here?  Have you talked to Luhan?”

He couldn’t keep up with the rapid-fire interrogation.  “Not now, Sehun, I hurt,” he mumbled.  Sehun took another look at him, and snatched his hand up, examining his wrist.  Then he seemed to take in the fact that there were more bruises ringing his neck.  Lay could see him reaching the wrong conclusion, but didn’t have enough energy to forestall it.  Both Sehun’s hands flew up to cover his mouth, disbelief written across his features.

“Did they – was it –  _are you okay?_ ”

“My head hurts,” Lay replied. “My whole  _body_  hurts, but I’m okay.”  Then he realised what Sehun was  _actually_  asking.  “No!  No, they didn’t –” he found himself just as unable to say it as Sehun had been, but for a different reason.  Baekhyun had been absolutely wonderful.  There was no way he was going to let the Agency slap a label like  _assault_  onto what they’d shared.   “No,” he repeated.  “But I need to tell Ace that they were there in Hawaii…”  He frowned suddenly as he realised he couldn’t remember  _why_  he’d been in Hawaii.  There had been a mission, hadn’t there?  He recalled a hotel exploding, collapsing down on his head, and holding an envelope.  But that had been incidental to his trip to Hawaii, and he couldn’t think of why he’d gone.

Ace was going to want to know that, too. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Sehun said, desperate to believe he was alright.  The marks on his body told an entirely different story, however, and he wanted to get it cleared up as soon as possible.  “Someone’s got to call Luhan!” Sehun burst out suddenly. 

Lay raised an eyebrow.  “Why?”

“Be – because…” Sehun stumbled over the words, confusion and disbelief on his face.  “Are you… having a fight?”

Now it was Lay’s turn to be confused.  “I doubt it,” he said.  “Since I’ve never even heard of anyone named Luhan.”

 

*

 

Ace’s office was much the same as it had been the last time Lay was in it.  His face was still veiled in shadows, and privately, Lay was amused by the elabourate rigmarole intended to keep his real identity a secret.

He was just as interested as Sehun in finding out what had happened to Lay.

“Honestly, sir, I don’t – don’t really know,” Lay said, after the fifth time Ace asked, probing to find out what was wrong with him.  “I was in… Hawaii, I think.  And then I got an envelope for a mission, but it wasn’t what I thought it was.  It was… Baekhyun.  Then he and Kris… took me off the street somehow.  When I woke up on their boat, we… uh…renewed our relationship.” 

He could  _feel_  Ace staring holes into his head.  “That’s all you recall?”

“That’s all that happened.”

“And what about Luhan?”

Lay shrugged.  “Sehun mentioned him too, but I don’t know who that is.”

Ace’s hands dropped to the desk with a thump, and he rose to his feet in one smooth motion.  Lay was suddenly afraid, and drew back.  “Are you lying to me?” Ace asked, his voice dangerous. 

“No, sir!” Lay held his hands out, waving them imploringly.  “I wouldn’t!”  Who was Luhan that  _everyone_  was freaking out over him?  Was Lay supposed to know him?  He’d never even  _heard_  the name Luhan, much less met anyone named that. 

A speaker on Ace’s desk crackled.  “Sir, Luhan is on his way in.  His flight just landed; ETA is about half an hour, depending on traffic.”

Ace pressed a button, and said, “Thank you, Nana.”  Although the shadows still concealed his face, Lay was left with the distinct impression that Ace was staring at him again.  “See medical,” he said, sounding tired.  “And god help you when Luhan arrives.”   

Utterly, totally, and  _completely_  baffled at that point, Lay bowed to him and said, “Yes sir,” before backing out through the door behind him.  He was actually starting to get nervous about Luhan’s impending visit.  Apparently, Luhan was someone very important.  Lay scoured his brain for any hints as to who it might be, and came up blank. 

Medical fussed over his bruises, insisting that he must have been forced.  “How else do you explain bruises on your neck?  Lay, this is not the time to protect anyone.”

“I’m not!” he insisted.  “Kris did it for… Baekhyun.”  He flushed again to think of it like that, and was aware that the medics were exchanging looks of disbelief.  “Maybe I should just go home if everyone’s going to look at me like I’m insane!” Lay snapped. 

“I’m sorry,” a cute young man whose nametag read Sungjong stepped forward.  “We’re just having a hard time believing  _Baekhyun_  and  _Kris_  had you completely helpless and just…let you go.”

Lay blushed.  “Well, Baekhyun … you know he and I have a history, and Kris is devoted to him… so…”  The reasoning was sound, but the words fell flat.  The truth was, he didn’t know why they’d let him go, either.  He didn’t know how they’d gotten him from Honolulu to Seoul, or what they’d given him that had made him unconscious for the entire trip.  The list of Things He Didn’t Know was stacking up rather quickly, actually. 

“So you will absolutely guarantee,  _swear_  by the gods that what you two had was…consensual?”

“Completely!” Lay snapped, fed up with them. 

Sungjong drew back, but then steeled his expression.  “But what about Luhan?”

Lay snarled.  “I am going to  _end_  the next person who asks me about him!  I don’t know who that is, I’ve never even heard of him in my  _life!_ ”

The silence was so thick after that statement it could have been cut with a knife.  Into it, a lilting voice said, “Well, that’s… not good.”

Lay turned around.  A cute guy – cuter than Sungjong, but more masculine in the line of his body, if not his face – stood in the doorway, two large duffel bags slung over his shoulders.  He’d evidently just come off a plane, judging by the tags on the straps, and Lay decided that this must be Luhan.  As Lay watched him, his expression melted from worried to devastated.  Tears filled his eyes, and his lips trembled.

“It’s true…?” he asked.  “You don’t remember me?”

Lay wanted to do anything to stop him from crying, but he couldn’t lie.  “No,” he said slowly, shaking his head.  “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

 

*

 

In a meeting room the next day, the bruises weren’t so noticeable.  Everyone still commented on them.  Lay was getting tired of it.

“It must have been Baekhyun,” Luhan said.  He was mouthy, pushy, and loud, and was getting on Lay’s nerves with his constant harping on Baekhyun.  “He’s had it out for Lay since the beginning, you know he has.  He has to have done something now.”

Lay thought,  _Fucked me senseless, but I doubt that would have caused memory loss._   He was beginning to be convinced that there was something missing.  Not only did  _everyone_  expect him to know this Luhan, he’d realised under questioning that a great deal of the last year was missing from his memory as well. 

Sehun gestured with his Café coffee cup.  “You don’t think he like… _brainwashed_ Lay, do you?”

“That’s not possible.”  Ace was sitting in via the video screen.  “Just like it is impossible to create a truly lifelike AI – yet.  The technology is there, we just haven’t harnessed it properly.  But the human brain isn’t a machine that you can rewrite like a computer.”  

“Then how do you explain –” he gestured wordlessly at Lay, who crossed his arms over his chest. 

“I’m telling you, he didn’t do anything,” he insisted.

Luhan shook his head.  “You wouldn’t know, not if he’s messed with other memories,” he said.

“No one asked you,” Lay said, a trifle nastily.  Luhan flinched back, then sighed.  Lay regretted the attitude as soon as it was out, but Luhan was  _seriously_  grating on him.  Maybe he was happier without his memories, if that’s what Baekhyun had done. 

“How much is actually gone?” Sehun asked.  They all turned to look at Lay, who looked helplessly back at them.

“He wouldn’t know,” Luhan said.  “He’s not there, anyway.”  He spun one finger around his ear as if to say  _insane_ , and Lay had to physically restrain himself by gripping the arms of his chair to keep from lunging across the table at him. 

“Ask,” Ace said.  Luhan brightened.

“How did you escape from Rocky?  You do remember Rocky, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember Rocky!” Lay snapped.  “Chanyeol and Tao were there.”  Luhan looked ready to cry again.  Lay had a sudden flashback to the sealed glass room, and the gas that poured into it at random, and shuddered.  The pink one that killed the mouse would have killed him had Chanyeol not shot the glass out at the last second, enabling him…

No, he realised.  Chanyeol had shot the glass out, that was true, but someone… someone had come in after him, hadn’t they?  He’d been half out of his mind with terror, about to die, sick from the gas – he couldn’t have taken himself out through the hole.  And now that he thought hard about it, he could remember the pressure of someone’s hands on his arms, holding him up, supporting him as he staggered. 

“Wait,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention.  His head was throbbing, he could hardly see, but he did remember… “Someone else…was there…  I remember them picking me up…”  He looked up, and saw Luhan’s hopeful face.  Suddenly it occurred to him that Luhan had feelings for him, which probably accounted for his bad temper.  Lay would be in a foul mood too, if someone he loved suddenly didn’t remember him.  He decided to be easier on Luhan from now on, but he couldn’t see straight for the headache.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I have to – I’m going to be sick,” he said hurriedly, and bolted for the door.  He made it to the bathroom before his stomach, upset by the pounding migraine in his head, emptied itself into the toilet.  The violent heaves made his headache worse, and he was grateful when Sungjong from Medical came and retrieved him. 

 

*

 

A few hours later, when the headache subsided, Lay returned to the meeting room.  The discussion had apparently been put on hold while he was in Medical, because Sehun was the only one still in the room, stacking pencils in a square shape so that a pencil tower was created. 

“You must be really bored,” Lay said, startling Sehun. 

“Wasn’t much else to do,” he said, when he recovered, and straightened the pencil tower.  Luhan bounded through the door next, hugging Lay – who stiffened – before remembering and pulling away. 

“Sorry,” Luhan said, contrite.  “Habit.”  He looked so upset that Lay felt guilty for his reaction.  Ace’s screen flickered on.

“Now that we’re all here,” Sehun began, but Ace held up a hand to forestall him.

“I’ve invited two others who are acquainted with Lay,” he said.  As if on cue, Chanyeol swaggered in, followed more sedately by Tao. 

“Brainwashing,” Sehun said, thumping his fist down and starting the conversation as soon as ChanTao were settled.  “You saw how he got a headache trying to remember.  Doesn’t that look just like a movie?”

“Like a ninja,” Luhan murmured for some reason.  It plucked at Lay’s memories, stirring them.  He’d had that conversation – in the warehouse, he realised.  He looked up because in movies, death always came from above because no one ever looked up.  He heard someone’s voice in his mind saying,  _Go like a ninja!_

He thought it might have been Luhan. 

“It’s not possible,” Tao said, devastating Sehun by inadvertently backing Ace.  Chanyeol propped his legs up on the table, making himself at home, and studied Lay in silence for a moment.

“Maybe hypnotism,” he said.

“A hypnotic suggestion to forget Luhan?  Is that possible?”  Sehun turned to stare at Lay, who was getting tired of being the center of attention. 

“I’m not hypnotizable,” he said.  “We learn to evade it in training,” he told them, aware that he was the only official ‘agent’ in the room.  Then he remembered Luhan, and wondered if he was trained as an agent as well. 

Ace sounded surprised.  “So you believe the training took?”

“I remember that before I underwent it, the lady was able to hypnotise me easily,” he said.  He was still embarrassed to recall the video she’d shown him of what he’d done while in a trance.  Then he’d gone through several weeks of training to resist her, and by the end of it, her best attempts had failed.  “Afterward, I was sort of immune.”

Ace made a thoughtful noise.  “We do try to anticipate points, but there’s usually been no follow up to make sure that it’s possible.  Could the training have failed?” he wondered.

“I’ll go find out if that girl is still available,” Sehun said.  “Have her come back and hypnotise him again.”  The meeting broke up once more.  After a brief pause, he returned.

“She’ll be able to come in tomorrow,” he reported. 

“Agent Lay, you’re staying here at headquarters again tonight,” Ace ordered.  Lay, who was missing his apartment and his movies, meekly acquiesced. 

 

The next morning, the six of them reconvened in the same room.  The hypnotist, who had been an attractive woman when Lay first met her, had only become more pretty with age.  She shooed the others out, and made Lay relax in the chair.  She tried everything she could – counting, chanting, strange incense, even a swinging crystal on a chain that threatened to spark Lay’s headache off again – but he remained stubbornly conscious throughout. 

When the others returned, she shrugged helplessly.  “He’s just not going under,” she said.   “I suppose it’s possible, if drugs were used – there’s a rumour of a drug called  _delete_  that just hit the streets in America not too long ago that blanks you out, but unless they used something like that, there’s just no way to hypnotise him.”

“Thank you for coming all the way out here,” Ace said politely.  They all rose and bowed to her as she left. 

As soon as she was gone, Lay slumped into his chair.  The hypnosis hadn’t taken, but it had done … something to him.  His head felt fuzzy again.  Luhan noticed first.

“Lay, are you alright?”

“I feel weird,” Lay said.  It sounded, even to himself, like his voice was coming from a far distance through a tunnel.  His head rolled back, and suddenly everything turned white. 

 _I remember this,_  he thought.  Yes, he’d been there before. 

 _Luhan,_  said Baekhyun in his memory.   _This second part isn’t for you it’s for Luhan_

_For Luhan_

_Luhan._ Who loved him, even though Lay was obviously breaking his heart.  He thought, there in the void, that he could see how someone could fall in love with Luhan.  He was cheerful and energetic when he wasn’t being snarky, but Lay had a feeling that snarky was just how Luhan was regardless. 

The white turned black yet again.


	5. Chapter Interlude

Lay slipped out of the Agency’s backdoor when no one was watching him. Now that he understood what Luhan was going through, he was beginning to feel bad about forgetting him and the irritation was wavering. Luhan’s unfailing dedication was somewhat awe-inspiring, though.

Lay couldn’t help but respond to it. Even without his memories of their long partnership – and he’d seen some of the tapes and records, he knew how much he was missing – he was beginning to see what it was about Luhan that had attracted him initially.

Even if, as they’d told him, he began their partnership believing that Luhan was a computer. It spoke volumes both about Luhan’s personality and Lay’s on self that he fell for the man in spite of that.

He had a moment of guilt about leaving the Agency, but then reconciled himself to it by reminding himself that Ace hadn’t expressly forbidden him from leaving the building – just ordered him to stay there for observation. Okay, he’d been observed. Now he was going to go get his coffee fix.


	6. A Moment Of Madness

  **Chapter Five – A Moment of Madness**

                                                 

Kris put Baekhyun and Yixing on the plane back to South Korea, and busied himself tailing the remaining agent around the islands as he searched for his missing partner.  When he sensed that the man, Luhan, was getting too close, he followed Baekhyun back to Seoul, to await developments there.

Baekhyun was, unsurprisingly, happy to see him.

“I half expected you to go back to Canada,” he said, while Kris did up his lifebelt.  Kris shrugged.

“I thought things around here would be interesting for a while,” he said, which was nothing less than the truth.  Baekhyun beamed at him and started humming happily along to the radio. 

They’d found another apartment to rent, one a little further away from the coffee shop Baekhyun favoured because it was also a little further away from the Agency headquarters.  He agreed to help Baekhyun track Yixing and his partner for a while, helpless in the face of Baekhyun’s smiling expression. 

They tag-teamed surveillance on Yixing’s apartment, which was evidently empty, and the Agency headquarters from which Yixing failed to emerge at all.  By the end of the first week, Baekhyun was getting antsy.

“I just want to know what Luhan thinks of my little…surprise,” he said, more than once.  Kris sighed.  He was getting heartily sick of hearing about Yixing, and it was beginning to spill onto his partner, and from there even onto Baekhyun. 

“Lure him out,” he suggested.  His brain flared with a sudden idea.  Baekhyun was clearly incapable of taking Yixing out, something Kris yearned to do.  If Baekhyun was distracted by talking to the other man, Luhan, then there was a chance Kris could take care of Yixing once and for all.  His mind flashed to another of Chen’s experimental drugs.  It had proved fatal in experiments, and wasn’t produced for sale, but he still had a few ounces of it lying around somewhere… he’d never thrown away anything Chen gave him.

Preoccupied with his own plans to get Yixing out of the Agency’s clutches and take care of him once and for all, he missed the pouting moue Baekhyun made at him.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Write him a damn note,” Kris snapped.  He regretted it when Baekhyun’s face fell – it was interesting, to say the least, learning to live with this new Baekhyun who had  _feelings._   He’d practically raised the younger man, despite the fact that only about ten years separated them in age, and he’d become accustomed to the Old Baekhyun who cheerfully – or perhaps not  _cheerfully_ , but uncaringly at least – carved some man to pieces when he was frustrated.  New Baekhyun was beginning to ask questions like,  _Is this really the right thing to do?  Doesn’t he have a family somewhere that will miss him?_

In his heart of hearts, Kris blamed the entire fiasco on Yixing.  He could never say that to Baekhyun’s face, for the man retained an unreasonable fixation on the agent, but it didn’t stop him in the privacy of his own thoughts.  Equally deep, he was sure that removing Yixing entirely – and not just from Luhan’s romance with him – would bring back the  _old_  Baekhyun, the one Kris loved.

Not that he objected to some parts of it.  Baekhyun  _was_  truly beautiful when he smiled.  

Baekhyun brightened, as though he’d divined Kris’s thoughts.  “Good idea,” he said, and practically skipped out the door.  Wondering what his erstwhile partner and sometime lover was up to, Kris followed him.  When he realised Baekhyun was just going to the corner store for a postcard, taking his ‘advice’ to heart, he turned his attention to the coffee shop.  It was in the opposite direction, but he knew for a fact that Yixing frequented it.  In order to gain access to Yixing, all he would have to do would be stake it out and wait for him to come.

It was several days before the plan bore fruit.  Looking pale and wan, with dark smudges beneath his eyes that attested to a lack of sleep or ill health, Kris recognised the man Yixing had been fixated on for the better part of a year at a passing glance.  He waited until Yixing was coming back out of the store, inhaling the scent of his coffee with the air of a drug addict getting their fix, before he made his move.

“Yixing,” he said, coming around the corner.  “Thank god I found you.”  He injected all of the passion and worry he could possibly emulate into his voice.

Yixing jumped comically, nearly dropping his precious cup.  “You!  What do you want?   Get away from me…”

Kris held his hands up, both to halt Yixing’s retreat and prove he was unarmed.  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said, urgently.  “It’s – it’s Baekhyun.”

The other man’s hysterical fear turned into concern.  “What about him?”

“He’s,” Kris said, and stopped himself.  He covered his face, knowing that Yixing – good-hearted and dumb as he was – would take it to mean strong emotion, and not an effort to keep himself from laughing.   “He’s… he’s asking for you,” Kris finished on a whisper, and glanced up.  Yixing seemed to forget himself and stepped closer.

“What?”  His voice rose several octaves in shock.  “What’s wrong?  Why?  Is he okay?”

Kris shook his head.  “I… I know we’re on opposite sides,” he said.  “But just for now… just once… before he… Would you come see him?”

Yixing nodded, was coming nearer even before Kris stopped speaking.  “What happened?”

“Gunshot,” Kris said, embellishing on the spot.  “A deal went sour, since Chen and Xiumin weren’t there to back him up…” He glared hatefully at Yixing, rightfully blaming him for their absence.  It was Yixing’s fault they’d been arrested, after all.  “He won’t make it much longer,” Kris added, injecting a real sense of panic into his voice.  The longer they stood around talking, the more likely it would become that someone would remember seeing them there when Yixing turned up dead. 

“I’ll come,” Yixing said, looking pained.  Kris crowed internally, blessing his gullible, weak heart.  “Where is he?”

“Our old apartment, just down this way,” Kris said, and turned to lead Yixing away from the store.  “Do you know where it is?”

Yixing shook his head, setting off a fresh wave of glee through Kris.  He could take him anywhere.  “I know its close, because he walked to the coffee shop,” Yixing said, eyeing Kris a little nervously.  He hadn’t given up all sense of self-preservation, then, Kris noted.  His worry for Baekhyun was just overriding his better instincts. 

It was actually a bit surprising – he hadn’t  _really_  expected Yixing to have real feelings for Baekhyun.  It was lucky for Kris that he did – and exceptionally unlucky for Yixing himself, and his partner who was about to lose him for real – but he hadn’t expected it.

 “Turn here,” Kris said, upon reaching the entrance to a dead end alley.  The road was deserted, another good sign.  “It’s a shortcut,” he added, when Yixing’s suspicious look deepened.  Trusting as a child, Yixing turned down the alley and was nearly halfway down it when he looked up and realised there was a brick wall before him. 

“ _You,_ ” he began, but Kris leapt on him, knocking the drink from his hands. 

“I just don’t like to share,” Kris said.  “And Baekhyun is  _mine._ ”  Triumphant, he uncapped the needle he’d palmed as they walked, and slid the tiny tube into Yixing’s throat, depressing the plunger and sending the deadly formula into his body.  He pocketed the syringe when he was done and watched Yixing clutch at his throat as he struggled to breathe. 

Watching gleefully, Kris noted the exact moment Yixing’s lips began to turn blue from lack of oxygen.  He stared in absolute fascination as the agent sank to his knees, struggling to draw breath while his throat was closing up and his lungs were freezing in his chest.  Soon, heart failure would occur, if he remembered Chen’s explanation clearly enough.  There was only one curious side-effect, something to do with the hands that would identify the substance used, but Kris was confident that Yixing would be gone before anyone could discover him.

 _You bastard,_  Yixing mouthed, tipping gracefully over to lie sprawled across the dirty alley floor while his chest hitched in an effort to get air.  He glared at Kris until the oxygen deprivation dimmed the light in his eyes and consciousness fled.

Death would follow.

Serene and confident, Kris stepped back and watched to make sure the twitching stopped before he stepped back out into the sunny road.  It was still deserted, only one car heading in the opposite direction.  Kris shoved his hands into his pockets, hiding the evidence within his jeans, and whistled cheerfully as he walked away.

The only hard part would be telling Baekhyun.


	7. Not Living For The Moment Any More

**Chapter Six – Not Living For The Moment Anymore**

 

Baekhyun settled in to the seat at the little outdoor café he’d once met Yixing in, waiting to see if Luhan would show up.  He’d dropped the postcard off by hand, not trusting to the mail delivery system.   He was certain, however, that Luhan would come to meet him once he received the card.

His senses pinged when his casual sweep of the surrounding park revealed someone walking straight for the café – not meandering as some of the casual visitors, or jogging like the exercise nuts, but a direct line.  As he drew closer, Baekhyun could make out the fierce expression on the small, somewhat familiar features.  He looked around the café, and decided he would take it outside the perimeter of the restaurant so as to avoid awkward conversations.  He overtipped the waitress again, and found himself genuinely enjoying her pleased smile.

Kris may have considered him ‘ruined’ but Baekhyun was more content now than at any other time in his life.  It was all thanks to Yixing.  He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the memory of their interlude on the boat, before stepping behind the little café to await Luhan’s arrival. 

He pasted his most disinterested expression onto his face, and watched Luhan steam towards him at full power.  For a single moment, he doubted the outcome of this little encounter, but as he’d set it up himself, he intended to see it through to the end. 

Luhan didn’t disappoint.  “You  _son of a **bitch**!_ ” he snarled, and then abruptly vanished as a sparkling darkness overtook Baekhyun’s vision.  When the pain throbbed to life in his jaw, he realised that Luhan had hit him. 

He fingered the sore spot, figuring that there would be an ugly bruise there later, but he’d owed Luhan that one.  When Luhan drew back his fist to hit him again, Baekhyun dodged it easily and caught him by the wrist, hauling him off balance and stepping inside his personal space. 

Curving his lips into a smirk, he asked, “So how are things in paradise now that Yixing doesn’t remember you?”

“I will  _kill you,_ ” Luhan growled in reply. 

“You’d miss me,” Baekhyun said. 

“I’d throw a party and dance right over your grave.”

“Yixing would never forgive you,” Baekhyun pointed out, and was gratified to feel Luhan freeze as the words sank in.  Lithe and snake-fast, Luhan twisted out of his grip, turning the hold against him by turning his arm until Baekhyun had to turn with it or allow his wrist to break. 

“ _Lay,_ ” Luhan said, emphasizing the codename, “doesn’t even remember me because of your little  _game._   Any last words?” 

“I wish I’d fucked him twice,” Baekhyun said, knowing it was unwise to bait him when Luhan had the upper hand but unable to resist.  Luhan pushed down on his arm, and once more the bones threatened to snap.

Suddenly a third voice filled the air between them. 

“Lu-Luhan!  Luhan are you there?  What are you doing?  Come in, Luhan,  _now!”_

Baekhyun didn’t recognise the voice, but he was aware of Luhan’s grip lessening.  He wrenched himself away from the agent and cursed himself for missing the combutton pinned to his chest.  It was the same colour as his shirt and was almost perfectly camouflaged.

Luhan seemed to have forgotten Baekhyun’s presence.  Curious, Baekhyun shamelessly eavesdropped.  It wasn’t as though it were a private conversation, however.

“Sehun?  Are you okay?  What’s wrong?”  He looked up and saw Baekhyun, who grinned at him.  Luhan looked ready to do murder.  “If you go anywhere, I will hunt you down like a dog.  We are  _not_  finished here.”

Before Baekhyun could reply that he was intensely interested in the crying person speaking from the combutton, the other man – who was audibly in heaving, sobbing tears – cut him off.

“Luhan, what are you talking about?  You have to get back here!  Is that Baekhyun?  Play games with him later.  It’s… it’s important.”

Baekhyun stepped closer – not, to his own surprise, to do harm to Luhan, but to hear the other man better.  Luhan’s face took on the distant expression of a person talking on a cell phone, looking into space without focusing on anything specific.  He seemed to have forgotten Baekhyun entirely.

“Games?  Sehun, what’s  _wrong?_ ”

“Luhan, it’s… It’s… I can’t tell you.  You have to come back.”

Wondering what was going on in the other man’s mind, Baekhyun saw the blood drain from his face before he spoke.  “Is it Lay?”

Baekhyun leaned in towards the combutton.  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but if it has to do with Yixing, you’d better stop playing around.”

Luhan shoved him.  “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What’s happened to Yixing?”

“Sehun, talk to me,” Luhan said again. 

“It’s Lay,” the combutton voice said, reluctantly. 

“ _Tell me!_ ”  Baekhyun glanced at Luhan in surprise as he realised they’d both said the same thing at the same time.  Luhan was his enemy, and even Yixing – but what his mind knew didn’t stop his heart from beating for Yixing.  Luhan’s lips almost twitched into a smile, but there were lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there a few moments ago.

“Oh  _god,_  Luhan, I don’t want to say this over the radio!”

Luhan’s face turned white.  Baekhyun seized him by the shoulders and shook him.  “What?  Luhan, you, Sehun, whatever –  _what’s happened to Yixing?”_

“What?  Are you –  _Baekhyun?_  – Luhan it’s – he’s – Yongguk found his body.  He’s – he’s dead.”

The entire world froze – the sunlight became black and the sound faded.  Everything crumbled except for the agent, himself, and that combutton.  Baekhyun’s heart stopped dead in his chest.

 _We’ve been here before,_  his mind said. 

 _We can’t do this again,_  said his heart. 

“Take me to him,” Baekhyun ordered quietly.  Luhan still hadn’t moved.  Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he was still even breathing.  He shook him again, a little more roughly than was perhaps necessary, but he needed to know if this was true.  “Luhan!”

“ _Luhan!_ ” The voice from the combutton started yelling at him as well.  Luhan, for his part, staggered backwards until his shoulders hit the side wall of the café, and his knees gave out from beneath him as he sank to the ground.  For a moment, Baekhyun wondered if he’d fainted.

“That’s not possible,” he said weakly, finally, proving that he was still conscious at least.  “I left him – I just saw him half an hour ago…”

From somewhere inside, Baekhyun found a reserve of strength.  He wanted to collapse to the ground at start screaming, but he needed to know for sure.  These agents weren’t always the sharpest tools in the shed – didn’t Yixing’s involvement with Baekhyun himself prove that? – and it couldn’t be possible.

He wouldn’t let it.

“Luhan,” he said, and shook the other man again so that his head rocked back and forth on his shoulders.  “Luhan, take me to the Agency.  Is it still where it was?”

Luhan was unresponsive, little hiccoughing breaths jerking his throat as he began to hyperventilate. 

“Are you – Sehun?”

The voice from the combutton was guarded, but still watery.  “I’m Sehun.  What do you want?  Haven’t you done enough?”

“I didn’t touch him,” Baekhyun said.  “Luhan is having some sort of attack.  I – I need to see him.”

“Luhan?”

“Yixing.”

“This is  _your_ fault!” Sehun shouted. 

“I swear,” Baekhyun said.  “By anything you name.  My own soul.  My life.  Luhan’s life, which I now hold in my hands.  I did not – would not –  _could not_  harm Yixing.  I will bring Luhan back to you if you let me see him.”  His head was spinning.  “ _Please,_ ” he said, knowing as the word left his lips that he was forever ruining his reputation.

It didn’t matter.  A world without Yixing – he’d been here before, all right, and the last time had been his own fault.  But a world without Yixing wouldn’t be worth living in.  Not even Kris could fill this void. 

“Come to the front door,” Sehun said, and gave the address.  “You’ll see a woman at the front desk.  Her name is Nana.  Give her this keyword –  _like a ninja_  – and she’ll let you in to see him.”

Baekhyun frowned at the bizarre password, but nodded.  “I understand.”  He tugged Luhan to his feet, surprised when the agent came unresisting.  He stared blindly, still breathing odd.  “Walk, Luhan,” he ordered.  “They might be wrong,” he suggested, hoping beyond hope that they were wronger than they’d ever been in their lives.

Luhan roused some from his catatonia when they came within sight of the Agency’s front door.  “What?”

“Welcome back,” Baekhyun said, and dropped him. He’d been supporting the other man’s weight for most of the walk and was tired of hauling him around.  Luhan hit the ground and stayed there for a moment. 

“You… where are we?”

Baekhyun knelt beside him.  “Truce,” he said, and held his hand out.  Luhan stared at it like he’d never seen a hand before.  “Whatever you think of me, or what I’ve done – I care for Yixing,” he admitted quietly.  “I need to see him.”

Luhan nodded, apparently regaining awareness bit by bit.  The wild expression eased off his face a little.  “Truce, then, for – for now…” He shook Baekhyun’s hand, and then wiped it on his pants as though he’d gotten something dirty on his fingers. 

“There’s no need to be rude.”  Baekhyun had half convinced himself that they were lying or wrong during the long walk back to the Agency’s headquarters, and the chance to get an unrestricted look inside the Agency itself was beginning to become an exciting notion.  He didn’t think he and Luhan would ever be bosom buddies, though – not that he wanted to be.  More than anything he wanted to liberate Yixing from their helpless clutches and this time he wouldn’t give him back. 

Luhan bared his teeth in an expression that was anything but friendly, but didn’t press the point.  He merely climbed back to his feet, disdaining Baekhyun’s help this time, and continued. 

As expected, the woman stopped them at gunpoint.  Luhan was surprised.

“Nana?”

“Quiet.  You.”  She nudged the gun in Baekhyun’s direction.  “Release him, and tell me what Sehun said to you.”

Baekhyun let go of Luhan, who swayed in place, and raised his hands before him.  “The password is ‘like a ninja,’” he said.  Luhan – who was losing his mind, Baekhyun thought – let out a choked gasp that was half-laugh, half-sob. 

The woman lowered the gun.  “Come with me,” she said, and turned down a hallway that was half-hidden behind the advertising display.  Baekhyun considered holding onto Luhan’s arm again, and then realised he was starting to recover himself just being inside the building.  At least he was no longer stumbling as if blind and drunk. 

They walked down a long corridor filled with doors.  Baekhyun remembered it from the last time he’d been inside the Agency, but still didn’t know what any of them were for.  Finally, they turned down another short hall and entered what was clearly an infirmary.  The antiseptic smell was overwhelming, and Baekhyun wrinkled his nose in disgust. 

A blond man who didn’t look like he’d gotten out of his teens yet looked up at their entrance.  His eyes were red-rimmed, and his face was pale.  He went immediately to Luhan and held onto him.  Baekhyun felt adrift at sea without even a log to hold onto, surrounded by enemies.  Kris didn’t even know where he was.  If they decided he was the orchestrator of this – farce, they could kill him and hide his body in one of those rooms and he’d never be found.  Only Kris would mourn him, after all, especially if Yixing was –

He cut ruthlessly that train of thought off before it could go on. 

“Sehun, what?” Luhan said.  “He – how –?”

“Snuck out for coffee,” the teenager – Sehun – said.  He wasn’t a bad looking kid, but Baekhyun’s attention was immediately arrested by the sheet-covered form on the bed behind the chair he’d vacated. 

Moving as if he were in a dream, Baekhyun withdrew the sheet.  Yixing’s pale, beautiful face lay in repose.  He’d heard people say, ‘ _They look like they’re sleeping’_  before but always discounted it.  The dead bodies he’d seen – and created, he admitted to himself – all looked exactly the way they were.

Dead.

Yixing looked like he was sleeping, however.  Any moment, he was going to open those beautiful brown eyes and with that beautiful, lilting accent, yell ‘ _Surprise!_ ’ and Baekhyun would kiss him all over because the only other alternative was hitting him.

He felt for a pulse at Yixing’s throat, and couldn’t find it.  He listened for breath, and didn’t hear it. 

Another young-looking kid with a patch on his jacket reading ‘Medic – Sungjong’ offered another chair. Baekhyun sank gratefully into it.

They weren’t lying. 

It wasn’t a joke. 

That was Yixing lying there, motionless and cold and

For the second time in his life – both directly related to the man on the bed – Baekhyun felt the hot sting of tears spilling down over his cheeks.

Only this time, Kris wasn’t there to make it better.

This time, it wasn’t something he’d done.

“Who?” he asked, his voice soft but deadly in spite of the stream of tears that wouldn’t quit.  “I’ll kill them,” he vowed.  He pulled the sheet back further, half-afraid and half-needing to see the wound – the gaping hole of a gunshot, or thin slice of a knife.  There was no blood anywhere, nor visible holes.

Baekhyun frowned. 

The medic shrugged when Baekhyun turned to him.  “I don’t know how they did it.  There aren’t any signs of a struggle.  No defensive wounds, no nothing.  The only thing we have to go on is Yongguk’s word that he saw a tall blond man walking with him …”

His voice faded as the words sank in.   _A tall blond man. **Kris?**_

“Did you check for needle marks?” Baekhyun asked, and then seized upon a memory of Chen explaining his experiments with a chemical compound that simulated death so well that the victim would in effect be buried alive.  They would never wake up, though, and would eventually die of starvation or asphyxiation within their coffin.  He called it his Sleeping Beauty.  It was virtually undetectable once absorbed into the body except for a curious side-effect.

Baekhyun violently threw himself out of the chair and snatched up Yixing’s hand.  Relief so powerful it nearly brought him to his knees swept through him.  “He’s not dead,” he said.

All at once, he became aware of externals again.  Everyone in the room – it looked like everyone in the Agency – was staring at him with hostile expressions. 

“Are you joking?  This is unacceptable,” Sungjong said.  Sehun looked like he was about to start crying again, and Luhan was audibly growling low in his throat, looking like he was ten seconds from tearing Baekhyun’s throat out with his teeth. 

“He’s not,” Baekhyun insisted.  “Look.”  He held Yixing’s hand – still warm, still loose, still  _alive_  – up for examination.

“I noticed that,” Sungjong said, earning a startled squawk from one of the other medics.  He seemed to be the most willing to believe Baekhyun’s word.  “What does it mean?”

“Maybe nothing,” Baekhyun admitted.  “I’ve only ever heard rumours.  Chen was developing it.   _Sleeping Beauty._   A drug that slows the heartbeat, and breathing until they’re practically nonexistent.  The only sign of it is the needle hole and this greenish tinge to the nails here at the cuticle.” 

“There’s no needle marks,” one of the other medics said, viciously.  “I examined him myself.”

Baekhyun stood up and glared at him.  “Well, do it again.”

“Not even the machines picked up anything –”

“It’s designed to be undetectable!   _Examine him again!”_

Baekhyun felt he was going to have to take on the entire pudding-headed lot of them when support arrived from an unexpected corner.

“Re-examine him,” Luhan said quietly.  Sungjong stepped forward and with help, went over every inch of Lay’s body.  He found the needle mark at the back of Lay’s neck, hidden by his hair.  He took a stethoscope from a drawer and the entire room held its collective breath as he bent low to listen to Yixing’s chest. 

“I hear… something,” Sungjong said.  He straightened, tears standing in his eyes.  “I don’t think he’s dead.”

The argumentative medic stepped forward and took the stethoscope.  Silence descended like a curtain once more, and this time when the man stepped back, his expression was hopeful.  “I concur.  Sungjong, get oxygen set up.  Daehyun, get an IV drip going.  We’ve got to keep him alive until…” He turned to Baekhyun, losing his air of command as suddenly as it had come over him.  “Is there a cure?”

Baekhyun wracked his brain.  He covered his face, trying to block out the sight of the Agency’s medical wing, and tugged on his hair, hoping beyond hope that he could recall some mention or casual note regarding a reversal.  “It was one of Chen’s personal pet projects,” he said.  “I… I’m not sure.”

Luhan stood up so fast he knocked his chair over.  “Chen,” he said, and looked at all of them.  “Chen!”  He sprinted from the room like all the demons of hell were on his heels.  Baekhyun stared after him, wondering if the man had finally lost it entirely.  


	8. Chasing The Sun

**Chapter Seven – Chasing The Sun**

 

Luhan ran three red lights and drove ninety kilometers an hour the entire way to the prison where Chen was consigned to spend the rest of his miserable life after his part in the break-in at the Agency.

He’d created things no one should ever have even thought of, assisted in or was directly responsible for the murder of countless people, and was certifiably insane.  That was the reason he was spending his life in prison instead of waiting on death row. 

Luhan had been the arresting officer during that debacle, and now he was going to get Chen out if he had to move heaven and earth to do it. 

He showed his badge at the front desk and submitted to the search before he was admitted to see Chen.  The man had done quite well for himself, despite his incarceration.  Although there were bars over the reinforced window, he had a room to himself that overlooked the ocean.

He sat beside it, looking out, as Luhan was escorted into his cell.

“This room is monitored,” the guard advised him.  “Knock when you’re ready to leave.”  He glared at Chen before letting himself out.  Luhan heard the door lock behind him before steeling himself for the thing he was about to do. 

“Kim Jongdae?”

Chen turned to him, all elegant grace.  “Yes?”  There wasn’t even a hint of the mad genius that had created such things as the drug that wiped Lay’s memory, forced him to sleep with Baekhyun unwillingly, or left him comatose and near death now.  Luhan couldn’t forget that this was the man who had cheerfully poisoned Lay himself on other occasions, either.  He struggled to keep his expression under control. 

“My name is Zhou Luhan.  I’d like to speak to you.”

Chen blinked and lost his hold on his serenity, bursting into startled laughter.  “I remember you.”

Luhan grit his teeth.  “Yes.  I’ve come to offer you a deal, if you’re willing.”

Chen looked around.  Luhan looked, too, and suddenly realised that all of the furniture was bolted down.  There were no sharp edges on anything, and the walls were padded.  “Does it involve getting out of here?”

“Yes,” Luhan said, wary now that it was down to it.  His half-assed plan had been formed on the drive over, but he was almost certain it could be pulled off. 

“I’ll do anything.  Name your terms.”

Luhan sank into a nearby chair, overcome by relief.  “Do you remember creating something you named ‘Sleeping Beauty’?”

Chen frowned, thoughtful, then brightened.  “Yes.  I gave some to Kris.”  His smile became devious.  “Has he used it?”

“Yes.  Give me the cure, and I’ll get you out of here.  If I can’t get you out completely, I can guarantee a lighter sentence, more luxuries.”

Chen sighed.  “There is no cure.  I never saw a need.”

And Luhan’s world shattered all over again.  He’d hinged all his hopes on that one vague statement by Baekhyun that Chen had created it.  “I see,” he said, and tried to keep his emotions from showing in his voice or on his face.  “Thank you for your time then,” he added, and rose.

Chen lunged forward, motioning him back into the seat.  “Wait just a moment,” he said, losing his cool.  “I said there wasn’t one – not that I couldn’t create one.”

The ups and downs were going to make him dizzy soon.  Despair to elation to depression to excitement – it was exhausting.  “What do you mean?”

“Tell me what’s happened.”

Luhan related the story Sehun had stuttered out to him, that Lay had snuck out and been accosted by Kris somehow.  Baekhyun had been with him when Sehun informed him, and Luhan had been out of his mind with a surging grief when Sehun allowed Baekhyun to visit the Agency and see him.  How Baekhyun insisted that the strange, green tint to Lay’s nail bed meant that he’d been poisoned by one of Chen’s creations.

“This happened recently?”

“Just a few hours ago,” Luhan said.  Hope warred with despair. 

“We don’t have more than a few days before his body shuts down,” Chen warned.  “Whatever you do, you’ll have to do it fast.  I’ll need a lab.  Certain compounds.  Chemicals.  Beakers, tubes, Bunsen burners.”

Luhan was nodding with every word.  “You’ll have it,” he promised.  “I need to go make a few phone calls.”  He knocked to be let out, and immediately retrieved his cell phone, stepping outside to make the calls.  He called in every favour he’d ever been owed, and finally had to resort to calling Ace and letting him sort out the rest.  When he came back, fourty-five minutes later, he had a deal worked out.

“Did you succeed?” Chen asked eagerly.

Luhan held up one hand to forestall him.  “You’re to be remanded into Agency custody as of now,” he said.  “You have a week to discover, create, beg, borrow, steal or buy the antidote to whatever it is you made in the first place.  If you succeed, you get a clean slate.  Freedom, whatever you want to do.  If you fail – you’re coming back here, and it will be as if you’d never left.  Do you understand?”

Chen considered.  “That is exceedingly fair, but I also should warn you, we don’t have a week.  I give it four days at the  _most_ , and that’s if he’s on proper life support.”

“Thank you,” Luhan said gravely. 

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to fix it,” Chen warned him. 

“Please just try,” Luhan asked.  Begged.  Chen looked at him seriously, and nodded once. 

 

*

 

Back at Agency headquarters, Chen was remarkably cheerful.  “You haven’t changed a thing,” he commented brightly.

“You have until nine tonight to make your list of what you think you’ll need,” Luhan said. He was already tired of Chen’s attitude, and didn’t know how he was going to survive a week with the man, especially with Lay’s life hanging in the balance. 

“Oh, I made that up in the car,” Chen said, startling Luhan by brandishing a paper with lists scrawled all over it.  “So show me where he is,” he said.  Luhan lead him back to the medical bay.  Less than three hours had passed since he’d run out of the room, chasing a wild idea.  Lay was still motionless on the bed, but now he had various tubes and wires attached.  The pulse monitor still registered a flat line, which was terrifying, but there was another monitor that displayed multiple lines that jigged and squiggled. 

Baekhyun was still in the room, holding Lay’s hand.  Luhan had to squash the instinct to retrieve a weapon and shoot him where he sat.  Sehun was on the other side, making notes on a little handheld device. 

Chen gasped exaggeratedly.  “Number One!  I heard you were involved in this little – debacle.”

Baekhyun looked up with a dark expression.  There were purple shadows beneath his eyes, and Luhan was struck with the realisation that Baekhyun actually,  _really_  did care about Lay.  He made a rude gesture in Chen’s direction, which raised him in Luhan’s estimation, albeit unwillingly. 

“Fuck off, Chen,” he said, and muffled a yawn behind his free hand.  Chen waved him aside, and felt at Lay’s throat and wrists, before examining his fingers.

“Good call,” Chen said to Baekhyun.  “It’s definitely S.B.”

Luhan handed the list Chen had created over to a medic.

“We have most of that here,” he said.  “Sungjong can get the rest.” 

Chen smiled, almost warmly.  “Then there’s no reason I can’t start now,” he said.  “Show me where I can work.”

“Right here,” the medic said, clearly unhappy about having his space invaded.  Chen nodded, and directed them to set up what looked like a children’s chemistry set to Luhan’s eyes. 

“Let’s get the party started,” he said.  Luhan took up a third seat beside Lay, staring across his partner’s body at Baekhyun, who didn’t take his eyes off Lay once.


	9. Chapter Interlude

**Chapter Interlude**

 

Sehun woke at one thirty in the morning and found himself unable to go back to sleep.  He wandered down to the medical wing and discovered Lay just as he’d left him a few hours before.  This time, however, both Luhan and Baekhyun were asleep beside him.  He chuckled to himself at the awkward triangle they’d inadvertently formed, and wondered how Lay would react when he woke up.

It didn’t occur to him that Chen would fail to cure him.  His freedom was on the line – and wasn’t that a bit of genius on Luhan’s part? – and a man that selfish and self-absorbed would do anything to keep his own tail out of trouble.

Sehun was startled when he noticed a light on in the far corner of the spacious room, and then took in the sight of Chen leaning over a microscope.  He made notations on a pad of paper and then selected a dropper of something to add to the slide he was looking at.  Sehun drifted closer and heard him muttering.

“Three parts hemoglobin to two parts water and SDX-9 to make –  _shit!_ ”  Smoke emanated from the little slide, which Chen freed quickly and dumped into a nearby tub.  It splashed quietly and hissed, and Sehun craned his neck to see several other slides already at the bottom of the water, which covered about four inches of the little bucket. 

“I don’t think shit will do much good,” Sehun said, startling Chen. 

“How long have you been there?”

Sehun shrugged.  “About a minute,” he said.  Chen eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t say whatever was on his mind.  Sehun let a few more minutes pass in silence before he gave in to curiousity.  “What are you doing?”

“Trying to rebuild the original compound. I’ve taken a sample of Yixing’s blood to try and isolate it, but it’s fused with his red cells already.  If only I had an extractor that could decode hormone signatures,” he muttered, distracted again almost immediately.

“A what?”

Chen looked startled again as Sehun interrupted his chain of thought.  “Ideally, a small computer that could isolate individual cells and tell me whether or not they’re combining or disintegrating, and identify what it was seeing.  They don’t sell them at Radio Shack, though, and I lost my original when my hotel was seized.”

“I could do it,” Sehun offered.  Behind him, one of the sleeping men murmured quietly and shuffled.  Sehun turned to look at them but couldn’t identify which one had made the noise. 

He looked back at Chen only to be confronted with a patently disbelieving expression. 

“Do what?”

“I could make you one.  It’s what I do.”

Chen blinked.  “…Really?”

“You’d have to give me the codes for whatever it was meant to be looking for, but sure.  I even have a template ready.  I’ll be right back.”  He practically ran from the room, gratified that he might be able to help.  He brought the little device – originally it had been a tablet, but he’d gutted it and replaced all the parts with a more advanced system – and all his tools and a few spare parts with him back to the medical wing. 

Chen looked grateful to see him.  “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind,” he said.  He sounded almost  _normal,_  Sehun realised.  It was easy to forget that he’d orchestrated mass horrors on innocent and unsuspecting people.  He’d  _seen_  the tapes from Lay’s undercover operation in Chen’s hotel, after all.

“I’m not really smart,” Sehun began.  Chen scoffed. 

“You created the combuttons, I heard,” he said. 

Sehun shrugged.  “We needed them, and they didn’t exist.  I’ve always enjoyed taking things apart and seeing how they worked and making them work better, but I can’t really … contribute in any way.  This is all I can do.”  He dumped his things at a spare table.  “Do you mind if I work here?  It shouldn’t take too long to add the input slide, but I’ll need your help with coding and programming it.”

Chen looked nervous again.  “I’m not a programmer,” he said.

“I am.  I just need to know what to tell it to look for.”

Chen relaxed.  “Then as long as you’re quiet, you can stay.”  He smiled, but it was a little self-deprecating.  “It’s not like I own this space, after all.  Everything I had in the world was taken with my hotel.  I managed to get a few things to Kris and Baekhyun, but not enough.  And nothing useful.”  He waved his hand, which bore a chunky bracelet Sehun  _knew_  Chen hadn’t been wearing when he came in.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, this?”  Chen pointed to a line on the floor.  “I can’t cross that.  It’s a little more advanced than a shackle and chain, but the idea is the same.”

A tiny flower of respect for Chen blossomed within Sehun’s chest.  The man was a convicted criminal, murderer, drug dealer, and looked to spend the rest of his life behind bars for all the evil he’d committed.  Yet here he was, dedicatedly trying to reverse the damage he’d incidentally caused.  He wasn’t even complaining that they’d basically chained him to the wall.  Sehun worked in silence, using his laptop to create the program interface that would allow them to interact with the software. 

The last time he looked at the clock, it was nearing five in the morning.  The next thing he knew, there were voices echoing across the room.  He recognised Luhan’s immediately, but couldn’t place the other until he looked over and saw Baekhyun and Luhan arguing across Lay’s body.  Sehun shuddered, and something slid down off his shoulders to pool around the back of the chair.  He remembered working beside Chen, and looked around for the chemist, finding him asleep on a cot near his work.  Sehun picked up whatever had fallen, and realised it was a jacket.  Chen’s jacket, he thought, and imagined himself falling asleep hunched over the desk trying to create the program, and Chen – evil, killer Chen – noticing and covering him up. 

It was – oddly touching.  His stomach chose that moment to announce that it was empty, and it was so loud it interrupted the argument going on across the room.  Sehun flushed with embarrassment, glad Chen hadn’t been awake to hear his body betray him like that, and then wondered what that thought meant.


	10. Unlovable

**Chapter Eight – Unlovable**

 

When sitting deathwatch beside the irascible Luhan became too much to handle, Baekhyun passed the time watching Chen struggling to save Yixing’s life.  He marked the way Chen and Sehun were learning to work together, and found it amusing when a burgeoning friendship sometimes slipped over into accidental flirting.  He’d never known – or cared – what type Chen went for before.

He was learning a lot of new things, many of them in the scant thirty-six hours since he’d first entered the Agency. 

Another new idea was the knowledge that Luhan was deeply, truly, head-over-heels for Yixing – and didn’t even know it.  Baekhyun cornered him by the coffee pot on the first morning, when his suspicions were first developing. 

He started casual, leading into a question he’d been wondering about since the night before.  “How much money do you think the Agency brings in?”

Luhan glowered at him.  “More than you,” he said.  “We pay our agents very well.”

Baekhyun waved the hostility away.  “No, I’m only asking because – if this organization is so filthy rich, why can’t you afford to buy better coffee?”

Luhan sputtered inarticulately for a full two minutes.  Then, inexplicably, his eyes became damp with unshed tears.  Baekhyun fought down the immediate urge to apologise.

“Why does  _everyone_  hate the coffee?”  Luhan asked when he’d gotten himself under control.

“Because it’s cheap and terrible,” Baekhyun answered, disregarding the possibility that the question was rhetorical.  “Instant-decaf would probably taste better, and decaf is a crime against nature anyway.”

Luhan’s lips twitched in what might have been a smile, if he’d been anyone else.  Then he seemed to remember that he and Baekhyun were arch-enemies and wiped it away.  But Baekhyun couldn’t wipe away the warm glow that filled him as he realised he’d made Luhan happy, even if only for a moment.  He didn’t  _want_  to make Luhan happy.

But Yixing would be happier if he did, he realised.  

“Staring at it’s not going to make it taste any better, and some of us would like to get at the pot,” said someone from behind him.  Baekhyun jumped, startled, and shifted out of the way to make room for Sehun to half-stagger, half-stumble towards the coffee pot. When he’d successfully poured himself a cup, he inhaled gratefully.  When he smiled, it lit up his entire face.  Maybe Chen wasn’t wrong to be cradle-robbing after all. 

“Why is the coffee so terrible?”  The words were out of his mouth before he realised he was going to speak them.  Sehun paused mid-sip, and stared at Baekhyun over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Because the girl who buys it is a dedicated tea drinker,” he said.  “And I don’t know enough about coffee to upgrade it.”

Baekhyun didn’t stop to consider.  “First things first, if you want more caffeine per cup, you want a light roast.  The flavour isn’t as intense, but that’s a small price to pay for caffeine.  Second, don’t go for a blend.  Get a pure bean and grind it yourself.”

Sehun blinked at him, adrift at sea.

Baekhyun  _tch_ ed.  “I’ll go get it myself,” he said, and left Sehun behind.    He paused to check in with the girl at the desk.  “I’m,” he said, and realised that if he left, he might not be allowed back in.  “Um.”

“Can I help you?”  She was carrying a cup from a prestigious bakery, and Baekhyun could smell the herbal tea from where he was standing.

“Are you the one who buys the coffee?”

She raised an eyebrow, stared at him, and then broke down in quiet snickers.  “Yes.  I don’t know what to buy, so I just get the name brand,” she said.  “But everyone complains.”

“Because it’s offensive,” Baekhyun said, softening the harsh words with a winning smile.  “I’m going to get some decent beans and probably a grinder.  I… want to come back.”

She sobered, considering.  It wasn’t more than a few seconds before her lips twitched again.  “Go ahead,” she said, obviously stifling laughter.  “I’ll be here.”

On his way to the supermarket, Baekhyun considered the warmth and acceptance inside the Agency.  It didn’t include him, though they’d all stopped looking at him like he was going to murder them in their sleep.  It irked him that Chen was being absorbed into that warmth, that camaraderie they all seemed to share while he was left on the outside.  He felt like a small child again, pressing his nose against the window of the homes with happy families.  Although Kris had won him acceptance, it had been on sufferance only.  Kris was the reason they respected and included him, and even years later, when he was running the day-to-day operations, it was still Kris’s name that provoked them. 

In his memory, some of the lower-ranked criminals were whispering.   _That’s Number One._

_Who?_

Kris’s _right hand man._

_Euuh.  Okay.  So don’t mess with him, right?_

_Right.  Not only will he fuck your shit up, Kris will tear your head off and shit down your neck._

“Are you going in or are you just going to stand there and commune with the door?” 

Baekhyun came back to himself and realised that he’d been standing in front of the supermarket for several minutes.  He stepped aside and the old woman hobbled past him, muttering about  _kids these days._   It was the second time in as many hours that he’d gotten so lost in thought that he’d forgotten where he was. 

He collected a few necessary items, paid for them, and turned to walk back to the Agency headquarters when his phone rang.  He knew from the ringtone that it was Kris.  Although the training of a lifetime conditioned him to answer that ring as soon as possible, he forced himself to keep walking, to leave the phone in his pocket.

It had been Kris who put Yixing in this position.  Baekhyun felt a new, overpowering emotion sweep through him –  _hate_.

It startled him so badly he nearly dropped the bags.  He’d only ever felt this once before, in the first dramatic few weeks after Yixing’s supposed death at Baekhyun’s own hands.  He’d hated Yixing then, for making him feel, for breaking the walls around him that kept everyone at arm’s length.  It hadn’t lasted; it wasn’t long before he realised that he hated Yixing because he loved him. 

The phone rang again.  Baekhyun paused, closed his eyes and breathed deeply.  He thought about taking it out and silencing it, but he knew that if he touched the phone, he would answer.  Finally, it stopped ringing and beeped with a new voicemail notification.  Baekhyun took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and kept walking.

It was the first time in his life that he’d ever disobeyed Kris, and it was exhilarating.  Terrifying, too, he realised a moment later when the adrenalin rush spiked his heart-rate and kicked his fight-or-flight reflex into overdrive.  He half-expected Kris to descend from the sky, an avenging angel, and punish Baekhyun for daring to defy him.  He looked up, and then around.  The streets were just beginning to become crowded, an ideal situation for following someone.  He was well aware of how well Kris tracked people, even through city streets thronged with crowds, and it terrified him that Kris might be among them somewhere, just out of sight and full of wrathful rage that Baekhyun had deliberately ignored the phone call.

Without meaning to, he hurried his steps and didn’t breathe easier until he was back inside the Agency’s walls.

The irony of the fact that the citadel of his enemy had become the safest place for him to be was not lost on him.

 

*

 

Kris stared at the place Baekhyun had stopped.  He’d listened to the ridiculous ringback tone Baekhyun had chosen – some poppy number about a coffee shop – twice while watching Baekhyun  _not_  answer his call.  By the time he’d pushed down the worst of the disbelieving anger, Baekhyun had vanished into the now-crowded street. 

The next emotion to pulse into his heart was fear.   _Baekhyun knew_.  Somehow, the agent’s body had already been discovered, and Baekhyun knew Kris was behind it.   _How?_  His soul roared, but none of the rest of him had any answers.  He needed to get back home, first of all, and he’d decide what to do next from there. 

The first thing that struck him as he entered the empty apartment was how  _lonely_ it seemed.  Baekhyun hadn’t just stepped out for coffee, or to run an errand – he’d left.  Kris knew it as deeply as he knew the sun was still in the sky.  That refusal to answer the call had been a message – Baekhyun knew and he wasn’t forgiving.  Kris knew all too well how Baekhyun held grudges; he’d watched the man bring retribution down on the same man he’d just killed nearly a year after the original crime of making Baekhyun fall in love with him.  He’d also witnessed how Baekhyun allowed Chen to screw up once and never trusted him fully again. 

The loss of Baekhyun hit him then, like a punch to the gut.  Alone in the vast, empty house that had been home a few days ago, Kris dropped to his knees and for the first time in his life, he prayed.

_Please let me find him.  Please give me a chance to explain._

And then, like a gift from the gods, the idea burst into full life in his mind: track the cell phone.  He was carrying it, and it was on, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to get inside the phone company’s mainframe and activate the GPS. 

He overlaid the projected signal over a street map of Seoul, and what he found rocked him to his very core.   _The Agency._

The plan was unformed, nebulous, but he knew what he had to do – he had to get inside the Agency building and find Baekhyun.

 

*

 

The near-brush with Kris in the street left Baekhyun shaken.  He stumbled his way through an explanation of how to grind the beans he’d purchased, how to store the whole beans, and what to buy when those bags ran out and then fled back to Yixing’s bedside. 

Luhan was sitting beside him, dry-eyed but looking miserable.  The clock was ticking on Yixing’s life, counting down the seconds until it ended.  Chen was leaning over Sehun’s shoulder, pointing to things on the computer screen.  It was facing away from him, though, and for all Baekhyun knew they were looking at pictures of lions mating.  It still rubbed him wrong that Chen had been absorbed so quickly into the fold, and then all of a sudden he realised it was because Chen wasn’t truly bad. 

He’d done some bad things, but at the heart of it was his love of creation.  His motives were selfish, but he’d used the end products for the gain of others – namely, Kris and Baekhyun himself.  If he were showing a little enlightened self-interest now, of all times and places, Baekhyun was the last person who could fault him for it.  He’d done jail time for his crimes, after all.

But Baekhyun knew something in him had broken at a very young age, and he’d grown up around the fractured pieces in a twisted mess.  With Kris standing in for Father, Uncle, and Brother, it was no wonder that he’d never realised that what he was doing was in any way wrong – at least until he met Yixing. 

Without even trying – without even  _knowing_ – Yixing had pruned back the rotten parts to reveal his core.  What he found there didn’t much please him, but as he took his seat opposite Luhan, Baekhyun forced himself to look at his life objectively for the first time. 

And for the first time, it struck him true and deep that he had not lived a good life.  He would have grown even worse, feral and vicious, if not for Kris’s restraining influence.  Although in hindsight it was laughable to consider anything Kris had done for him as positive, he couldn’t deny that without the man teaching him to blend in with the general populace, to focus his bloodier tendencies into outlets where they could be expressed safely, Baekhyun would have been killed long ago, or locked up like an animal at the zoo. 

The more he considered it, the more he realised how Kris had  _used_  him over the years.  Like a well-trained hunting dog, Kris had pointed and Baekhyun shot forward, always the front man, to destroy his enemies, acquire what he wanted, retrieve the spoils of war. 

He wondered what kind of family life Yixing had grown up with, and if they were proud of their son, whose fate hung in the balance now because of Baekhyun’s actions.

 _Always think of other people,_  Baekhyun thought.  Kris’s first lesson.  He wanted to find Yixing’s family and apologise to them.

He looked up.  “Luhan, I’m sorry,” he said. 

Luhan blinked at him like a man coming into bright sunshine, and then stood and leaned over Yixing’s comatose body to press one hand against Baekhyun’s forehead.  The touch was foreign and vaguely unpleasant, but he allowed it, ready to accept whatever Luhan dished out. 

“Are you sick?” Luhan asked, and Baekhyun realised that he wasn’t about to attack – he was checking Baekhyun’s temperature, just as if they were normal people.  The comment drew the attention of the others in the room, and suddenly Sehun was at his side – not seventeen or eighteen or even nineteen, as Baekhyun had surmised, but nearly twenty-four. 

“If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be here,” he said.  “I’ve got a recipe for chicken soup that I’ve never been able to make properly, but it helps,” he added. 

“Do you need to go lay down?” Chen asked. 

Sungjong was there.  “You do look flushed,” he said, and withdrew a small plastic stick from a box.   Belatedly, Baekhyun realised it was a thermometer. 

“I’m,” he said, utterly adrift.  They weren’t treating him with fear, or respect, or as though he were diseased.  He had no idea how to respond to this sudden shift in attitude.  “I just need to go and get some coffee,” he said, and practically fled the room. 

He wandered the Agency at will, and was surprised by how many people he  _didn’t_  see.  There was a poster in one hallway featuring a poor picture of Kris, labeled with hysterically large, anxious letters,  **SUSPECTED ENEMY NUMBER ONE: KRIS**. Beneath it was a smaller picture of himself, with straight hair and brown eyes – it had been taken in Yixing’s apartment, Baekhyun realised, and wondered when they’d managed it.  In smaller letters, it too was labeled.   **Kris’s Right-Hand Man, “Number One. Other Alias Unknown.”** _byun baekhyun_

He discovered a gym, and sat on one of the weight-lifting benches for a long time, still considering what he’d sensed in the medical wing. 

It was, he realised, the acceptance he’d seen them awarding Chen.  He’d won through the charmed circle and been granted permission to enter.

Only now, he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

 

* * *

  
                SORRY!  I know I said this would be the last chapter, but this was such an excellent stopping point, and I love this chapter and I want to share it so… I’m going to post it now.  I’ll have the last chapter and the epilogue up this weekend, as well as an update on Confessions for those of you who are reading that.  This may be winding down  _The Action,_  but the story of the Agency isn’t over!  I still have Baekhyun’s story, Luhan’s story, and multiple sides to tell! 8DDD


	11. Without You I'm Nothing

**Chapter Nine – Without You, I’m Nothing**

 

Baekhyun was alone in the room with Yixing.  Even Chen had been granted momentary freedom – apparently in the interests of new surroundings bringing new inspiration, and he’d taken most of his lab equipment with him to Sehun’s room - though Baekhyun had overheard the shadowy man on the screen – Ace, they called him, but Baekhyun was pretty sure that wasn’t his real name – telling Chen that the same line that encircled the half of the room Chen was allowed to move freely in had also been installed at the perimeter of the Agency itself.  If he attempted to step over the line, the bracelet around his wrist would shock him like a Taser.  At best it would bring him to his knees; at worst, it might knock him unconscious or even stop his heart.  Baekhyun wondered that they hadn’t imposed such a restriction on him, and then realised it was because they had an agreement with Chen.  He was technically still under arrest, and only the venue had changed.

Baekhyun was there of his own free will, and he still hadn’t even figured out why.  He’d done a lot of soul searching in the last few days – more than he’d ever done in the rest of his life, combined.  But it hadn’t brought him any answers.  Just more questions.

Like: was he really a good choice for Yixing?  He loved the man – he could say that now without flinching – it was true, and Yixing cared for him as well.  But Yixing also cared for his partner, and it wasn’t fair of Baekhyun to ask him to make that choice.  It was clear that in any case, Yixing would choose Luhan.  It would be better if Baekhyun left now, and didn’t give him the opportunity to make the choice that would break Baekhyun’s heart all over again, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave before he knew if Yixing would be safe.

Added to the fact that he had nowhere else to go, and he was just better off staying where he was.  Kris would find him soon, if he hadn’t already, and if he didn’t, Baekhyun would hunt him down like a dog.  He hadn’t decided whether he would kill him or not; it was another of the questions his searching had uncovered. 

Kris.  A parental figure, a friend, a lover.  Now, the Enemy.  But why?  Because of Yixing?

Baekhyun went around in circles for hours.  Finally, he knew in his heart that he would make the best choice by simply removing himself from the picture entirely.  He would stay long enough to see Yixing restored to life, then he would find Kris and kill him, and then himself.  It would neatly solve all their problems.  Yixing and Luhan could be happy together, and he and Kris would never trouble them again.  Chen could walk away free, or take up with the kid – they’d noisily discovered their passions for creating things overlapped, and had been in fierce discussion for hours before Luhan made an executive decision and kicked them all out – whichever would make him the happiest.  And Kris and Baekhyun could be together in Hell, if that’s what was waiting for them. 

A tension he hadn’t even been aware of eased as he made the decision.  He heaved a sigh of relief, glad to have the immediate future mapped out, and was startled when it was echoed by a light  _whoosh_  and a cool gust of air.  Glancing up, he thought at first he was hallucinating.

Kris was standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?”

It took him a moment to realise they’d spoken in unison.  Baekhyun looked away first, automatically checking on Yixing.  The monitors were unchanged; the heart-rate still registered a flat line, and the brainwave monitor was nothing but a dozen lines of incomprehensible squiggles.  He was relieved again that the squiggles were still there; it meant that Yixing was still alive inside that inert husk. 

“ _Him,_ ” Kris growled, following his gaze.  “What is he doing here?”

“You failed, Kris,” Baekhyun said.  “He’s still alive, and Chen’s going to bring him back.”

A dark, twisted expression passed over Kris’s face.  For the first time since he was six years old, Baekhyun felt a shiver of fear in Kris’s presence. 

“I killed him,” Kris said.  “I watched him die.”

Baekhyun shook his head, and stood up, wanting to face his former partner on more equal footing.  “It’s not immediate.  You should have just shot him.”  He winced when he realised he was giving Kris ideas.  Then he realised that the other man held a gun in his hand and didn’t need Baekhyun’s input.  He never had. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kris said.  “Why don’t you just come back home with me?”

Baekhyun shook his head again, the movement slow and jerky.  “You know I can’t do that.”

“ _Why can’t you?_ ”  Kris lunged forward, and Baekhyun dodged automatically.  “Bee, I’m sorry,” Kris said.  “I didn’t mean it.  I’m angry, you know what I’m like when I’m pissed off.”

The use of the familiar nickname struck like a dagger into Baekhyun’s heart.  He used the pain to steel himself against Kris’s words.  “How could you do it?”

“I just wanted you back.”

“You  _knew_  what he means to me!”

Kris raised the gun.  “All I wanted was for us to be together!” he said, his voice ragged.  “I felt so sorry for you at first, but it wasn’t until later that I realised how much you mean to  _me,_ ” he added.  “Baekhyun, you  _complete_  me.  Without you, I’m nothing.”

 “I was nothing  _with_  you.  Just your lackey,” Baekhyun shot back.  Their volume was rising – soon someone was going to come and investigate, which reminded him – “How did you get in here, anyway?”  He had a sudden horrifying vision of the tea-drinking girl at the front desk, covered in blood.  He’d done that once, too, he remembered.  Another black mark against his wretched soul.  He would burn and burn and burn…

“The back door was propped open,” Kris said, looking suspicious.  Baekhyun heaved a sigh of relief – the girl, the girl whose name he didn’t even know, she was safe.  “Bee, what does that have to do with any–?”

“I’m tired of this,” Baekhyun said. “You… you brainwashed me just like I did him,” he gestured to the sleeping Yixing, and then realised his mistake when Kris focused on the prone man and remembered he was there.  “Did you even know killing is wrong?”

“Why are you talking like this now?” Kris whined.  “It’s all his fault,” he said, in a completely different tone of voice.  His face twisted up with rage and madness.  The gun, which he’d let drift back to his side, came up again.  This time it wasn’t pointing at Baekhyun.

“Kris,  _no!_ ”

“I said it before, and I’ll say it  _again!_ ” Kris roared, all traces of sanity vanishing.  “Without him, you’d be perfect!”

Baekhyun lunged.   Kris fired.

 

He really didn’t like getting shot.  It hurt, and it was messy.  And it  _hurt._   Baekhyun opened his eyes and realised he could still see.  The ugly infirmary ceiling wavered above his head, and just on the edges of his vision, a colourful blob hovered.  As his eyes remembered how to focus, he realised it was Kris, wearing an expression Baekhyun had never seen on his face before. 

It was horror, and sadness, and shock, and regret.  “Baekhyun,” he said, his voice weak.  “Oh… Oh no, why – Bee, why did you do that?”  With trembling hands, Kris seemed to come back to himself from whatever mad fit had overtaken him.  He touched the new hole in Baekhyun’s ribs, setting of shockwaves of fresh pain through Baekhyun’s body, and then yanked his hand back; Baekhyun could see that it was covered in blood. 

Kris staggered to his feet.  Behind him, the door flew open so hard the doorknob punched a hole through the wall.  From his vantage point on the floor, Baekhyun could see Luhan, a wild expression on his face as he took in the scene.  Visibly trembling, Luhan closed both hands around the grip of the handgun he was carrying and emptied the clip – directly into Kris.

 _Vengeance is mine, sayeth I,_ Baekhyun thought, and even to himself it sounded a bit hysterical.  Luhan dropped the gun as Chen and Sehun careemed around the corner, nearly bumping into him.  Kris dropped slowly to his knees.  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. 

“I’ve got it!” Chen shouted.  “This one will work!”

Kris looked into Baekhyun’s eyes, and then down at the holes in his chest.  All the activity faded around them.  For a moment, they were the only two people in the world.   _Blood,_  Baekhyun thought.  He’d been born in blood.  Kris had taken him out of that nightmare when he was six years old.  Now it seemed they would return together. 

 _I think I hate blood,_  Baekhyun thought, and then Kris completed his slump to the floor.  Baekhyun pushed himself up with difficulty.  Every breath set off a fresh wave of dizziness.  Chanyeol and Tao and some of the medics, drawn by either the gunfire or Chen’s shout that he had a cure, piled into the room.  No one seemed to notice Baekhyun or Kris as they crowded around Yixing’s bedside; one medic even stepped over Kris without seeing him. 

The loss was too huge to contemplate.  Baekhyun gripped one of the other beds and used it to haul himself to his feet, holding one hand against the wound in his side.  He breathed deeply, and although it hurt like hell, his lungs felt clear.  Kris had checked his aim at the last second, seeing Baekhyun getting between his gun and his target.  He’d still struck, of course – Kris was – had been – a crackshot.  But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  Baekhyun turned and looked at the commotion going on at Yixing’s side.  Chen was dramatically flourishing a needle, and plunged it into the IV drip.  Everyone in the room, Baekhyun included, held their breaths. 

Yixing’s chest rose and fell once – twice.  The heart monitor leapt into startled life, reporting an erratic beat for a few seconds but getting stronger and more even as the medication began to do it’s work. 

A sense of relief so vast as to compete with the loss he still felt washed over Baekhyun and left him weak.  Luhan was leaning over Yixing, and Baekhyun wished them well.  He limped towards the door, and turned back once more.  By chance, or fate, a gap had opened in the crush of bodies, allowing Baekhyun a clear view of Yixing.  He was breathing deeply now, the heart monitor was reporting a strong, even heartbeat.  His eyes squeezed tight for a moment and then opened.  Luhan let out a sob of relief and joy.   _Always think of other people first._

Baekhyun turned away. 

 

[The End]


	12. Epilogue 1

Epilogue

 

Lay opened his eyes, and knew a moment of panic. Kris! He flailed for a moment, thinking only of escape, and then realised the person looming over him wasn’t the tall foreign man but Luhan. A confusing mix of emotions wracked him, but they were just as quickly swamped by terror as he recognised Chen amidst the people surrounding him.

With a gasp, he threw himself backwards, scrambling to his feet until his back met the wall. A machine screamed as Lay took in his surroundings. It was the medical wing of the Agency. Was he hallucinating Chen? No, he was still there. People were yelling at him, telling him to calm down and sit down and other things he wasn’t listening to. 

And there was blood on the floor. Lay automatically looked down, but none of it seemed to be coming from him. Most of it, in fact, seemed to be slowly leaking out of the body.

“Wh-wha-wha-?” He couldn’t seem to get his lips to work properly. Sehun – Sehun?! – was ushering Chen out the door in the background. No one seemed to have noticed the body yet. Lay gathered his resources as Luhan scrambled onto the bed, still leaking tears like a loose faucet. 

“Lay,” Luhan was saying. “It’s okay. You’ve got to sit down.”

“What – happened?” Lay asked, enunciating clearly. The last thing he remembered was Kris telling him he didn’t like to share and then there was a sharp pain, and then Kris looming over him, smirking triumphantly. Chen was supposed to be in jail. Lay had seen him arrested, testified against him at his trial. He felt faint, and clutched at the wall for support. Luhan held his hands out like someone trying to calm a fractious horse, motioning him down. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Luhan was saying. Lay shook his head. 

“I’m,” he said, and his throat was so dry and he was so tired all of a sudden. The room swam around him, and he began to think that maybe sitting down wasn’t such a bad idea. He slid down against the wall, and began to recognise more of his surroundings. Chanyeol and Tao were there, and Sungjong and Daehyun and Youngjae. Luhan knelt beside him, awkward on the tiny hospital bed.

“Lay, look at me. Are you alright?”

It was such a ridiculous question, Lay almost laughed. Luhan seemed to see it in his face, for he smiled wryly. 

Someone spoke from the door. “Can I come back in now? I’d like to examine him.”

“That’s my job!” Youngjae snapped back. 

“You don’t know what you’re looking for,” the voice said, and then suddenly Chen and Sehun reappeared in the room. 

“What is he doing here?!” Lay yelped. “And who is that?” He pointed to the still body on the floor. Suddenly the entire room erupted as everyone began shouting at once.

“Where’s Baekhyun?”

“Kris!”

“Did you see him leave?”

“He’d been shot, he was bleeding, he can’t have gone far!”

“Who killed Kris?”

“When?”

“Where is he?”

Luhan saw Lay about to lose it again and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Everybody shut up!”

The silence was so immediate that a pin hitting the floor would have been audible. 

“Thank you,” Lay murmured to him. It was far, far too much. Sungjong knelt beside the body and felt at the neck for a pulse. 

“He’s dead,” he said. Luhan latched onto Lay, confusing him further. 

“He’s dead!” Luhan murmured.

“Who?” It was the only thing he managed to say before everything overwhelmed him. Lay surrendered to the inevitable and passed out cold, sprawling limply against a startled Luhan. 

 

His next awakening was calmer. The room had been emptied, and the sterile smell of bleach told Lay that someone had cleaned up. Luhan was still beside him, somehow squeezing to fit next to him on the narrow cot. As soon as Lay stirred, Luhan sat up. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I know it makes you uncomfortable.” He began to withdraw, but the look on his face was so sad that Lay reached out and seized his wrist before he could get far. 

“It’s – it’s okay,” Lay said. “Stay.”

Luhan’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “How are you feeling?”

Lay smacked his lips and took stock of himself. “Thirsty,” he said. “Tired. What.. what’s happened? How did I get here? What is Chen doing here?”

Luhan looked amused. “There’s a lot to tell you,” he said. 

 

After a meal and lots of water, and another surprise visit by Chen, they all sat down around the bed. “So, in summary, Kris is… dead. Confirmed. It’s him, and he’s one hundred percent gone,” Luhan said. Chen looked momentarily sad, but then Sehun swatted him. 

What an unusual pair, Lay thought, watching the interplay between them. 

“Baekhyun’s gone. Nana saw him go, but since she had no orders to keep him from leaving, she just let him walk out,” Luhan continued. “I… don’t think he’ll be a problem. Not all of that blood was Kris’s. If he lives the week, I’ll be surprised.”

“I don’t get it,” Lay said. “Why would Kris shoot him? Kris loved him.”

“I’ll pull the security feed,” Sehun volunteered, and removed to a computer in the corner. 

Lay eyed Chen, who stared dispassionately back. “So you’re sticking around?”

“I believe I may also be able to help with your little memory problem,” he said, sounding smug. Luhan gasped.

“You didn’t tell me that! Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Until we knew if he was going to survive, it was a moot point,” Chen said, shrugging. Lay was struck with the realisation that he’d cheated death again – this time thanks in whole part to his once enemy, due to Luhan’s quick thinking. 

“Dude, you’re like a fucking cat,” Chanyeol said from the doorway. “Nine goddamn lives.” He was smiling as he said it, though, and it was almost warming to know that so many people cared about him. Baekhyun, though… He’d lost his partner, his lover. According to Luhan, Baekhyun had behaved like a normal human being for almost a week, even going as far as to teach them all how to use the fancy bean grinder he’d bought for them. 

“The coffee is really good,” Luhan said, brightly.

“I – I think I’m going to start drinking tea,” Lay said, crushing him. 

And now he was out there somewhere, wounded and alone. No one thought he would be much of a danger, but neither could anyone explain why he’d left, or what was going through his mind or where he was going to go now. 

And Kris – Kris was dead. 

It was a very thumping sort of word. Dead. Dead. Very final. Lay felt like he was beating himself over the head with the word every time it crossed his mind. But now all of their problems were solved, and another one presented itself.

What were they going to do now?

Chen had the answer. “We start by trying to get your memories back.”


	13. Epilogue 2

**Epilogue 2**

 

“He injected it, right?” 

“I’ve told you everything I can remember,” Lay said, getting frustrated.  Chen kept asking him over and over if he remembered anything else about the procedure Baekhyun had used upon administering the drug, but Lay had been as forthright and honest as he could be and Chen still wasn’t satisfied. 

“And said it was for Luhan.  So he set out to delete the memories of Luhan.  Sneaky little bastard,” Chen muttered.  “I never did like him much.”

“He had some good points,” Lay said dryly.

“Don’t tell me – it was the rings –”

Luhan cut him off.  “ _Too much information!_   Just get this over with already!” He was practically vibrating in his seat, he was so anxious and nervous and excited. Lay felt positively relaxed next to Luhan. 

Chen carefully aligned the needle and slid it quickly into Lay’s skin.   The cold feeling rushed through him, and he had time to think,  _Oh, this is familiar,_  before the white cloud enveloped him.  He would have been content to drift there forever, finally at peace.  He wondered absently if this was what heaven was like. 

“Is that normal?  What happened?   _What did you do to him?”_

“Luhan, shut up.  This is normal.  Okay, hypnotist lady.  You’re the expert here.”

A clacking echo.  Then a female voice.  “Agent Lay, can you hear me?”

_Yes._

“Good, he’s responsive.  Can you see the crystal?”

He almost replied no, but then a beautiful prism slid into the white field.   _Yes._

“Good, good.  Watch the crystal, Agent Lay, and relax.  I want you to listen to my voice and relax.  You’re so relaxed you can almost go to sleep, but not quite.  Oh, this is much easier.  He went right under.  Agent Lay, can you still hear me?”

_Yes._

“Good.  I want you to go back in your mind to the last time you were hypnotized.  A man named Byun Baekhyun did it, do you remember?”

_For Luhan._

“Yes.  I want you to tell me exactly what he did.”

_Gather the memories.  Bury them.  Forget that I had been asked to do that._

“Oh dear.  I see, thank you, Agent Lay, you’re doing a marvelous job.  I know this is going to be hard, but you know where those memories are, don’t you?”

_…Yes._

“Thank  _god._   Agent Lay, I want you to find them and dig them back up.  Can you do that?”

_Yes._

“Do so.  Tell me when you have them.”

In his mind, he saw the fog disperse over one precise area.  It looked like dirt that had recently been disturbed, but something about it felt right.  He dug.  Finally, a box appeared.  When he opened it, photographs spilled out.  He told the female he had them. 

“Very, very good.  Put them all back where they belong now.  It doesn’t matter if it takes you a while, you want every single one back where it needs to be.”

He began working on the assigned task.  It bothered him, because some of the photographs were lost.  They were swallowed by the mist, and he couldn’t find them.  Some of them wouldn’t fit where they seemed like they were supposed to go – new photographs were already there.  He wanted to complete his mission, though, and he squeezed them all in. 

A semi-familiar voice rang through the void.  “This is taking an awfully long time.  Is this normal?”

“To be honest, Luhan, I have no idea.  This is completely uncharted territory for me.  This sort of thing isn’t usually possible with hypnosis.  This drug of yours, Chen, it’s a powerful thing.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t really a compliment.”

“It wasn’t an insult, either.”

“Chen, shut up.  Luhan, look!”

“Agent Lay,”

_Yes?_

“Are you done?”

 _Nearly._   The last photograph slipped into place.   _Yes._

“I want you to rise gently, as if awakening from a soothing nap,” the voice commanded.  “When I snap my fingers, you will be alert and refreshed, and you  _will_  remember this session.”  He felt himself begin to float. 

The snapping sound woke him as if from a dream, but the white mist hadn’t totally vanished.  Although he remembered her telling him he would be refreshed, he was so tired.  He couldn’t seem to move, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

“Agent Lay?  What do you remember?”

“Go like a ninja,” Lay mumbled.  “Heh.  No one ever looks up.” Sleep claimed him almost immediately. 

 

*

 

“I think… he’s back,” Luhan whispered, overcome.  Lay was sprawled over the bed, sleeping soundly.  “That’s what he said when we had that conversation.  Do you think he really remembers?”

“Let the drug wear off first,” Chen advised wryly.  “Then ask him.  Otherwise you might do some harm if he’s still suggestive and you say the wrong thing.”

“Well,” the hypnotist said briskly.  She wiped her hands on her skirt and shook Luhan’s before bowing.  “Please feel free to call me again at any time.”

“Hey, Luhan, we’ve got some applications.  Do you want to take a look at it?”

Luhan scowled.  “Applications from where?”

“Kris’s take-down was in the news.  We’re not mentioned explicitly, but some people will find out anyway.  There are some really good ones in here.  Look at this, Bang Yongguk.  Dissatisfied criminal prosecution lawyer, looking to do some good in the world  _without_  stooping to vigilante justice.”  Sehun smirked.  “Which, if you ask me, was exactly what Kris got.” He waved the stack of applications teasingly.  Luhan, having none of it, snatched them out of his hands and flipped through them.  To his dismay, Sehun was right; Yongguk was exactly what they were looking for in an agent.  Intelligent, active, an ‘outside-the-box’ thinker.

“Bring him in for training,” Luhan said.  “And then we’ll have to find him a contact.”

“I know just the guy,” Sehun said.  “My underclassman.  He used to go by the name ‘Zelo’ in school.  I’ll see if he’s interested.”

 

[This will be the start of the Agencyverse B-Series, beginning - as they say - in "The Beginning", which is coming soon!]


End file.
